Supercontinuum Generation with High Birefringence SF6 Soft Glass Photonic Crystal Fibers

A kind of high birefringence SF6 soft glass photonic crystal fiber （HBSF6-PCF） is proposed. The properties of birefringence, dispersion, nonlinear coefficient and the transmission characteristics are studied by the multipole method and the adaptive split-step Fourier method. The numerical results show that the birefringence and the nonlinear coefficient reach the orders of 10^-2 and 10^-1, respectively. In addition, the HBSF6-PCFs can generate very smooth supercontinuum spectra when illuminated with femtosecond pulsed light of 1064 nm. It is found that up to 800nm spectral width （evaluated at -5dB from the peak） is achieved. Therefore, the advantage of the HBSF6-PCFs is such that a high birefringence, a high nonlinearity and a smooth supercontinuum are perfectly combined in them.     

Efficient Fibre Amplifiers Based on a Highly Er3＋/Yb3＋ Codoped Phosphate Glass-Fibre

Highly Er3＋ /yb3＋-codoped single-mode phosphate glass fibre is fabricated by the rod-in-tube technique. The performances of high-concentration Er3＋ /yb3＋-codoped phosphate glass fibre amplifiers are investigated and discussed. An efficient optical fibre amplifier with a gain of 12.6 dB based on a 3.0 cm long Era＋ /ybe＋-codoped phosphate glass fibre is demonstrated under a dual-pump configuration with two 976 nm fibre-pigtail laser diodes, which make it attractive for compact Er3＋-doped fibre amplifiers. The obtedned noise figures of signal wavelength from 1525 to 1565nm are less than 6.0dB. Gain saturation behaviour at 1535nm is also investigated, and the obtained saturation output power is larger than 10 dBm.     

A broadband ultra flattened chromatic dispersion microstructured fiber for optical communications

A double-cladding microstructured fiber (MF) is proposed in this paper. The inner cladding of this optical fiber is composed of elliptical air holes and silica. The dependence of dispersion on the diameter of the air holes, the pitch, and the axes of the elliptical holes is investigated numerically. The proposed fiber possesses an ultra flattened dispersion curve over a wide wavelength range, and its dispersion value is small. The effective mode area is approaching to 60 μm², and the confinement loss is as low as <0.025 dB/km at 1550 nm. While choosing suitable structure parameters, an ultra dispersion-flattened MF within a broadband from1000 nm to 1900 nm can be achieved. The dispersion fluctuation is 0.6-1.0 ps/(nm·km) in all S, C and L band.     

Self-Starting Passively Mode-Locked Er^3＋/Yb^3＋ Codoped Phosphate Glass All-Fibre Ring Laser

A self-starting, passively mode-locked all-fibre ring laser based on the homemade Er^3＋/Yb^3＋ codoped phosphate glass fibre is reported. Dual-pump sources were used to achieve the mode-locked operation in the experiment. The fundamental mode-locked pulse repetition rate is 10.67MHz. The pulse duration, assumed as the fit of hyperbolic secant pulse shape, is 5.82ps. We also observe the multi-pulse output of the fibre laser.     

Non-Degenerate Four-Wave Mixing in Microstructure Fibres

Non-degenerate four wave mixing based on third-order susceptibility X^3 in high nonlinearity microstructure fibres is experimentally demonstrated. The Stokes and anti-Stokes peaks are observed simultaneously by launching 10-fs pulses from an 80Ohm Ti：sapphire laser into the fibre.     

Dispersion management in soft glass all-solid photonic crystal fibres

The development of all-solid photonic crystal fibres for nonlinear optics is an alternative approach to air-glass solid core photonic crystal fibres. The use of soft glasses ensures a high refractive index contrast (> 0.1) and a high nonlinear coefficient of the fibres. We report on the dispersion management capabilities in all-solid photonic crystal fibres taking into account four thermally matched glasses which can be jointly processed using the stack-and-draw fibre technique. We present structures with over 450 nm broadband flat normal dispersion and ultra-flat near zero anomalous dispersion below 5 ps/nm/km over 300 nm dedicated to supercontinuum generation with 1540 nm laser sources. The development of an all-solid photonic crystal fibre made of F2 and NC21 glasses is presented. The fibre is used to demonstrate supercontinuum generation in the range of 730?C870 nm (150 nm) with flatness below 5 dB.     

色散平坦渐减光纤中超连续谱的产生

对双正交偏振光脉冲在色散平坦渐减光纤中传输时超连续谱的产生进行了计算和分析。结果表明，由于交叉相位调制效应的作用，双光脉冲可以产生比单光脉冲明显展宽且更为平坦的超连续谱。对于双基孤子脉冲，可以得到-20dB谱宽达388nm的平坦宽带超连续谱，比单基孤子脉冲产生的超连续谱谱宽增加72nm，交叉相位调制效应对超连续谱的产生起到增强的效果。当输入脉冲的抽运功率较低时，交叉相位调制效应对超连续谱的产生的增强效果更为显著，它极大地提高了超连续谱的产生的效率。数值计算的结果还表明，与其他高阶非线性效应相比，拉曼自频率移效应对超连续谱产生的影响更为明显。     

色散平坦渐减光纤产生平坦超宽超连续谱的特性研究

提出了色散平坦渐减光纤的一种新型色散模型.从频域的全场方程出发,通过数值计算对该种光纤中平坦超连续谱的产生展开了较系统深入的研究.研究表明,该种光纤相比常规色散平坦渐减光纤可以产生更宽的平坦超连续谱,其平坦谱宽可达1000nm以上.进一步的研究表明,光纤的初始峰值色散参量、色散参量微分常量、渐减系数和抽运脉冲的宽度、孤子阶数、初始啁啾等参数对该种光纤中平坦超宽超连续谱的形成都有着非常重要的影响. 关键词： 超连续谱 色散平坦渐减光纤 群速度色散 自相位调制     

Modal Birefringence Dependent Supercontinuum Due to Cross-Phase Modulation in a Dispersion-Flattened/Decreasing Fiber

It was found by numerical analysis that a 320 nm wide and flat spectrum at 20 dB less than the central maximum intensity is generated from cross-phase modulated soliton pulses with 3.5 ps pulse width and 2.3 W peak power, which are propagated through a 2.4km length of dispersion-flattened/decreasing fiber (DFDF). The cross-phase modulation (XPM) at a central wavelength of 1.55 μm is achieved by exciting two orthogonally polarized modes into the principal axes. The wave-vector mismatch between the orthogonal pulses can be neglected because of soliton trapping when the modal birefringence of the DFDF is less than |n_ox - n_0y| = 10⁻⁶. The effect of modal birefringence on supercontinuum generation is discussed in temporal and spectral regimes by numerical analysis.     

Supercontinuum generation and nonlinear pulse propagation in photonic crystal fiber: influence of the frequency-dependent effective mode area

Numerical simulations are used to study the effect of the frequency dependence of the effective mode area in photonic crystal fiber on supercontinuum generation. We quantify how the frequency dependence of the effective area influences the propagation characteristics through a modified optical shock term and identify the major consequence as a reduction in the extreme long-wavelength edge of the supercontinuum spectrum. Our results show that, for the parameter regimes used in many previous supercontinuum generation experiments using near-infrared femtosecond pump sources around 800 nm, this effect would be expected to be negligible. However, for pumps in the 1000–1500 nm range, the inclusion of this effect would be expected to be crucial for accurate comparison of simulations with experiment.     

In situ observation of dynamics of plasma self-channeling and bulk modification in silica glasses induced by a high-intensity femtosecond laser

The time-resolved dynamics of plasma self-channeling and refractive index bulk modification in silica glasses were first observed in situ using a high-intensity femtosecond (110 fs) Ti:sapphire laser (λ_p=790 nm). Plasma channeling is induced in silica glass at an irradiation higher than an input intensity of 1.5×10¹² W/cm² and photoinduces either the refractive-index modification or optical crack modification. In the domain of refractive-index modification, the lifetime of induced plasma self-channeling was 20 ps and the structural transition time for forming the refractive-index change was 10 ps. In the domain of optical cracks, however, the lifetime of induced plasma formation was 30 ps and the structural transition time for forming the optical cracks was 40 ps. According to electron spin resonance spectroscopic (ESP) measurement, it was found that the defect concentration of the SiE^′ center increased significantly in the refractive index modification region. A maximum value of the refractive-index change Δn was measured to be 1.6×10^-2. The intensity profile of the output beam transmitted through the refractive-index modification showed that the bulk modification produced a permanent optical waveguide. Received: 8 April 2002 / Accepted: 12 April 2002 / Published online: 22 November 2002 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +81-48/462-4682, E-mail: shcho@riken.go.jp     

Improved flatness and tunable bandwidth of the supercontinuum generation in all-normal dispersion-flattened PCF using Littman–Metcalf optical bandpass filter

We have proved that in an all-normal dispersion-flattened photonic crystal fiber (PCF), the four-wave mixing (FWM) process dominantly affects the flatness of the generated supercontinuum (SC). The numerical results show that pulses with steepened edges can enhance the FWM conversion efficiency during the SC’s generation and the minima of the spectral oscillatory structure will be smoothed. A double-pass Littman–Metcalf optical bandpass filter is used to make the 1.60 ps hyperbolic-Secant shaped pulses obtain steepened edges. The experimental results show that the flatness of the SC generated from the 4 nm filtered pulses is improved by 0.21 dB. The SC with 10–65 nm tunable bandwidths is obtained by adjusting the filter bandwidth from 1 nm to 7 nm. Further numerical results show that the filter induced SC’s flatness improvement is more effective for pulses with 2.0–4.0 ps FWHM. The improved SC can be used for applications which require stable modulation carriers and flexible bandwidth.     

Generation of supercontinuum radiation in conventional single-mode fibre and its application to broadband absorption spectroscopy

High-pulse-energy supercontinuum radiation with a width exceeding 900 nm in the near-infrared spectral region has been generated in conventional single-mode fibre. The fibre was pumped at 1064 nm which is in the normal dispersion regime, resulting in predominantly red-shifted spectral broadening. Supercontinuum pulse energies exceeding 450 nJ were obtained. The use of conventional fibre allows for inexpensive generation of near-infrared supercontinuum radiation, featuring high pulse energies and good spatial beam quality. This supercontinuum radiation was used to acquire high-resolution (15 pm) broadband absorption spectra of H₂O, C₂H₂ and C₂H₄ in the near-infrared spectral region (1340–1700 nm), using an optical spectrum analyser for detection. H₂O spectra were also recorded at high repetition rates, by dispersing the supercontinuum pulses and detecting the transmitted signal in the time domain. A spectral resolution of 38 pm was obtained employing the dispersed supercontinuum pulses, which is comparable to the H₂O line widths at ambient conditions. PACS 07.07.Df; 42.62.Fi; 42.79.Nv; 42.81.-i     

利用超连续谱光源产生超短光脉冲

利用光纤中的各种非线性效应,获得了重复频率为２．５ＧＨｚ、光谱宽度达６０ｎｍ的超连结续谱超短光脉冲源。利用两个带宽分别为０．４ｎｍ及１．２ｎｍ的可调谐滤波器,从超连续光谱的不同波长处获得了脉宽为５．７ｐｓ及３．６ｐｓ的超短光脉中。由实验规律发现,在多种非线性效应中,四波混步效应对超连续光谱的形成有重要作用。     

Observation of phase conservation in multiwavelength binary phase shift-keying pulse-sequence generation at 10 Gbits/s by use of a spectrum-sliced supercontinuum in an optical fiber

Phase conservation in multiwavelength binary phase shift-keying (BPSK) pulse-sequence generation by slicing of a supercontinuum spectrum with a dispersion-flattened normal-dispersion fiber is experimentally observed. A 10-Gbit/s BPSK pulse sequence with a bit-error rate of <10(-10) is successfully generated over a 20-nm-wide wavelength range 1540-1560 nm.     

Demonstration of Mo Soft X-Ray Lasers with a Grazing Incidence Pumping Scheme in the XL-II Facility

A Ni-like Mo soft x-ray laser （SXRLs） operating at 18.9nm has been demonstrated by employing a grazing incidence pumping scheme with 120m^3 in the 200ps pre-pulse and 140mJ in the 200fs main pulse. The SXRL gain is estimated to be 1.5-3cm^-1 when a grazing incidence angle of 14° is applied. Numerical simulations are also performed to investigate the dynamics of the ion distribution. It is found that a high intensity at 2.4× 10^14 W/cm^2 of the 200fs main pulse could heat the pre-plasma rapidly to an appropriate temperature for population inversion, and could compensate for the shortage of the total pump energy to a certain extent.     

Fibre-Format Photonic Source Based on Efficient Frequency Doubling of Continuous-Wave Erbium-Fibre Laser Amplifier

We demonstrate a compact photonic device based on efficient and wavelength-tunable doubling of an all fibreformat source. Quasi-phase-matched second-harmonic generation in periodically poled lithium niobate is used to generate 90.6 m W at 775.9 nm with a single-pass conversion efficiency of 14.7%. A t uning bandwidth of 2.1 nm and a tuning temperature range of 150.6 ± 1.7℃ can be achieved. The Er-doped seed fibre source is amplified by a clad-pumped Er^3＋/Yb^3＋-codoped fibre laser with a high output power up to 2.18 W over a tunable wavelength range from 1535nm to 1570nm.     

Octave-spanning supercontinuum generation of vortices in an As2S3 ring photonic crystal fiber

We propose As(2)S(3) ring photonic crystal fiber (PCF) for supercontinuum generation of optical vortex modes. Due to the large material index contrast between As(2)S(3) and air holes in the designed ring PCF, there is a two-orders-of-magnitude improvement of the difference between the effective refractive indices of different vortex modes compared with regular ring fiber. The design freedom of PCFs enables a low dispersion (<60 ps/nm/km variation in total) over a 522 nm optical bandwidth. Moreover, the vortex mode has a large nonlinear coefficient of 11.7/W/m at 1550 nm with a small confinement loss of <0.03 dB/m up to 2000 nm. An octave-spanning supercontinuum spectrum of the vortex mode is generated from 1196 to 2418 nm at -20 dB by launching a 120 fs pulse with a 60 W peak power at 1710 nm into a 1 cm long As(2)S(3) ring PCF.     

Amplification Characteristics of Optical Fibres Doped with Nano Materials of InP

We take an enhanced structure of existing optical fibres to investigate the amplification characteristics. Nano and optical fibre technologies both are employed in our structure, i.e. the so-called nano-film amplification fibre where nano-film is inserted between the core and the inner cladding of the optical fibre. In the developed model, InP is chosen as a doped semiconductor to examine its amplification performance and 69.7nm is chosen as the thickness of the film. From our experimental results, the optical fibre structure shows its significant amplification characteristics for wavelength between 1080nm and 1491 nm. Amplification characteristics are also found in wavelengths 906-1044 nm and 1524-1596nm.     

Dispersion flattened photonic crystal fiber with high nonlinearity for supercontinuum generation at 1.55 μm

A robust design for a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) based on pure silica with small normal dispersion and high nonlinear coefficient for its dual concentric core structure is presented.This design is suitable for flat broadband supercontinuum (SC) generation in the 1.55-μm region.The numerical results show that the nonlinear coefficient of the proposed eight-ring PCF is 33.8 W -1 ·km -1 at 1550 nm.Ultraflat dispersion with a value between -1.65 and -0.335 ps/(nm·km) is obtained ranging from 1375 to 1625 nm.The 3-dB bandwidth of the SC is 125 nm (1496–1621 nm),with a fiber length of 80 m and a corresponding input peak power of 43.8 W.The amplitude noise is considered to be related to SC generation.For practical fabrication,the influence of the random imperfections of airhole diameters on dispersion and nonlinearity is discussed to verify the robustness of our design.