Supercontinuum generation using a passive mode-locked stretched-pulse bismuth-based erbium-doped fiber laser

A Supercontinuum (SC) generation in photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is demonstrated using an amplified picosecond stretched-pulses from a passive mode-locked Bismuth-based Erbium-doped fiber laser (Bi-EDFL). The Bi-EDFL employs of a piece of a highly nonlinear 49 cm long Bismuth-based Erbium-doped fiber (Bi-EDF), an optical isolator and a polarization controller in a cavity to generate a mode-locked stretched-pulse via a nonlinear polarization rotation technique. It operates at 1560 nm with a repetition rate of 42 MHz and a pulse width of 131 fs. The SC lights, which extends from 1250 nm to 1910 nm as well as in the visible green wavelength region are obtained with a 100 m long PCF and the amplified pump power of 30 dBm.     

Q-switched mode-locking in an erbium-doped femtosecond fiber laser based on nonlinear polarization rotation

An erbium-doped fiber laser based on nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) and negative group velocity dispersion (GVD) is built up. Two different Q-switched mode-locked (QML) operation states which can be distinguished by the properties in time and frequency domains are demonstrated. Besides the QML, stable continuous-wave mode-locked pulses centered at 1560 nm wavelength with pulse-width of 670 fs, harmonic mode-locking, Q-switching, and pulse splitting have been observed, respectively.     

Stabilization of a multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser using a nonlinear silicon waveguide

We propose and demonstrate a multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser stabilized by four-wave mixing (FWM) in a nonlinear silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguide. The optical gain was provided by an erbium-doped fiber amplifier, and the wavelength selectivity was achieved by a Fabry–Pérot comb filter in the ring cavity. The FWM in the SOI waveguide was enhanced by applying a reverse-biased p-i-n diode structure to reduce free-carrier absorption. Making use of the nonlinearity of the SOI waveguide, a multiwavelength laser with six output wavelengths at 0.8 nm spacing was achieved. The power difference among modes was equalized within a range of 1.8 dB. The power fluctuation of each mode was stabilized to <0.65 dB during 20 min observation at room temperature.     

Room temperature multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber ring laser using a highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber

A multiwavelength laser source is demonstrated with a high power erbium-doped fiber amplifier as the gain medium. A highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is inserted in the ring cavity to provide nonlinear gain by four-wave mixing. A Sagnac loop is incorporated in the ring cavity serving as a comb-like multichannel filter. The comparison between fiber ring laser without PCF and with PCF shows that the highly nonlinear PCF can generate a larger number of excited wavelengths and help stabilize the output power.     

Multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser employing a nonlinear optical loop mirror

A stable and broad bandwidth multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser is proposed and demonstrated successfully. A nonlinear optical loop mirror which induces wavelength-dependent cavity loss and behaves as an amplitude equalizer is employed to ensure stable room-temperature multiwavelength operation. Up to 50 wavelengths lasing oscillations with wavelength spacing of 0.8 nm within a 3-dB spectral range of 1562-1605 nm has been achieved. The measured power fluctuation of each wavelength is about 0.1 dB within a 2-h period.     

Supercontinuum generation in short dispersion-shifted fiber by a femtosecond fiber laser

The supercontinuum generation has been obtained in short conventional dispersion-shifted fiber using the femtosecond pulses from a passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser. In the experiment, the supercontinuum spectrum of >300 nm has been observed by injecting 70-fs pulses into a several-meter dispersion-shifted fiber. The simulation of the evolution in the fiber shows that spectral broadening arises from soliton dynamics when pumping using femtosecond pulses in the anomalous group velocity dispersion regime of the fiber.     

Gigahertz-repetition-rate mode-locked fiber laser for continuum generation

We report direct generation of <500-fs pulses at a 1-GHz rate from a self-starting passively mode-locked fiber laser by regeneratively synchronizing the pulses with a phase modulator. The pulses are amplified and passed through a dispersion-decreasing fiber and a normal-dispersion supercontinuum fiber. The resulting continuum is wider than 350 nm.     

FWM-based multi-wavelength erbium-doped fiber laser using Bi-EDF

We experimentally demonstrate a simple structure but efficient multi-wavelength erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) using a 49 cm Bismuth-based erbium-doped fiber (Bi-EDF) as gain medium. The Bi-EDF provides erbium amplification and FWM effect in the cavity to generate a stable multi-wavelength comb operating in C-band region. We have achieved more than 5 lines with peak power of more than −35 dBm and channel spacing of 0.5 nm by incorporating a broadband fiber Bragg grating and polarization controller in the ring cavity.     

Multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser using twin-core photonic crystal fiber

Laser Physics - We propose a novel multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser incorporating a twin-core photonic crystal fiber (TC-PCF) based Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI). TC-PCF based...     

Frequency-resolved coherent lidar using a femtosecond fiber laser

We demonstrate a coherent lidar that uses a broadband femtosecond fiber laser as a source and resolves the returning heterodyne signal into N spectral channels by using an arrayed-waveguide grating. The data are processed incoherently to yield an N-times improvement in the Doppler measurement of a surface vibration. For N=6, we achieve a sensitivity of 153 Hz, corresponding to a 0.12 mm/s motion, in 10 ms despite a signal that is speckle broadened to 14 kHz. Alternatively, the data are processed coherently to form a range image. For a flat target, we achieve a 60 microm range resolution, limited mainly by the source bandwidth, despite the dispersion of 1 km of optical fiber in the signal path.     

Carboxyl graphene oxide solution saturable absorber for femtosecond mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser

The carboxyl-functionalized graphene oxide(GO-COOH) is a kind of unique two-dimensional(2 D) material and possesses excellent nonlinear saturable absorption property and high water-solubility. In this paper, we prepare saturable absorber(SA) device by depositing GO-COOH nanosheets aqueous solution on a D-shaped fiber. The modulation depth(MD) and saturable intensity of the SA are measured to be 9.6% and 19 MW/cm~2, respectively. By inserting the SA into the erbium-doped fiber(EDF) laser, a passively mode-locked EDF laser has been achieved with the spectrum center wavelength of 1562.76 nm. The pulse duration, repetition rate, and the signal-to-noise ratio(SNR) are 500 fs, 14.79 MHz, and 80 dB,respectively. The maximum average output power is measured to be 3.85 mW. These results indicate that the GO-COOH nanosheets SA can be used as a promising mode locker for the generation of ultrashort pulses.     

Passively harmonic mode-locked erbium-doped fiber soliton laser with a nonlinear polarization rotation

Based on the nonlinear polarization rotation technique, we report on a stable passive 23rd harmonic mode-locked erbium-doped fiber soliton laser for the first time to the best of our knowledge. In this laser, 23 solitons are uniformly distributed in the cavity simultaneously, and all solitons have the same energy and duration. The increase of the coupler output enhances the dispersive radiation, and the longer cavity strengthens the interaction between solitons and dispersive waves. The two above factors play the key function to generate the 23rd harmonic mode-locked operation.     

Switchable triple-wavelength erbium-doped fiber laser using a single fiber Bragg grating in polarization-maintaining fiber

A stable and narrow wavelength spacing multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser is proposed and demonstrated. The laser can produce simultaneous dual- and triple-wavelength lasing oscillations with a narrow wavelength spacing of less than 0.1 nm via using a single fiber Bragg gratings written in polarization-maintaining (PM) fiber. By adjusting polarization controller, the wavelength spacing of dual-wavelength lasing oscillations can be tuned to as small as 0.032 nm. The maximum amplitude variation for every lasing wavelength is less than 0.5 dB. The room-temperature operation principle is based on the polarization hole burning and deeply saturated effect in an ordinary erbium-doped fiber ring laser (EDFRL). The laser has the advantages of simple all-fiber configuration, low cost, high stability and operating at room temperature.     

Performance of a wavelength-tunable erbium-doped fiber laser using a Sagnac interferometer

We experimentally demonstrate a wavelength-tunable erbium-doped fiber laser that is composed of a ring cavity and a single-mode fiber Sagnac interferometer in a new and simple arrangement. We find that the fiber laser output wavelength is tunable by adjusting the filter effect of the Sagnac fiber loop through a fiber polarization controller set there. The quasi-single-wavelength continuously tunable laser outputs could be achieved within some wavelength range. The multi-wavelength laser outputs could also be observed under some appropriate settings of the polarization controller. A theoretical demonstration of the wavelength tunability about the transmission-type Sagnac loop filter has also been achieved using the Jones calculus theory.     

High-energy femtosecond stretched-pulse fiber laser with a nonlinear optical loop mirror

A stretched-pulse fiber laser with a nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM) that produces 100-fs pulses with 1-nJ energy is demonstrated. These results constitute a 30-fold increase in pulse energy over previously reported femtosecond fiber lasers with a NOLM. Compared with previous stretched-pulse lasers, this laser offers a cleaner spectrum and improved stability, with comparable pulse duration and energy. Implications for the construction of truly environmentally stable lasers are discussed.     

Wavelength-tunable multicolored femtosecond laser pulse generation in a fused silica glass plate

We obtained an array of multicolored femtosecond laser pulses with as many as 17 different colors that are spatially isolated. The mechanism of generation was proved to be cascaded four-wave mixing and with the following procedure. The output beam from a femtosecond laser was split into two. One of the two beams was pulse-compressed with a hollow core fiber and the intensity of the other was reduced. The two beams were synchronized and combined with a small crossing angle in a plate of fused silica glass plate. The wavelengths of the sidebands are continuously tunable from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared. The pulse duration, spatial mode, spectrum, and energy stability of the sidebands were studied. As many as fifteen spectral up-shifted pulses and two spectral downshifted pulses were obtained with spectral bandwidths broader than 1.8 octaves. Properties such as pulse energy as high as 1 μmJ, 45 fs pulse duration, smaller than 1.1 times of the diffraction limit Gaussian spatial profile, and better than 2% RMS power stability of the generated sidebands make it can be used in various experiments. The characterization showed that the sidebands have sufficiently good qualities to enable application to for various multicolor femtosecond laser experiments, for example, a multicolor pump-probe experiment.     

利用飞秒激光加工碳纤维

为验证光学加工碳纤维材料的可行性,利用飞秒激光和连续激光对碳纤维块体材料进行了加工。获得了利用飞秒和连续激光加工的表面形貌。与连续激光加工相比,利用脉宽40 fs的激光加工效率较高,加工区边缘形貌较好,加工质量较高。通过不同激光功率下加工孔径尺寸的研究获得了飞秒激光加工阈值在1012 W/cm2量级。研究结果证明了光学加工碳纤维体材料的可行性。     

Multi-wavelength erbium-doped fiber laser using four-wave mixing effect in doped fiber

We demonstrate a multi-wavelength erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) using erbium gain and four-wave mixing (FWM) effect in a piece of erbium-doped fiber (EDF) with high erbium ion concentration. The EDF has a pump absorption rate of 24.6 dB/m at 979 nm and is bi-directionally pumped by 980-nm laser diodes. FWM effect redistributes the energy of different oscillating lines and causes multi-wavelength operation. The laser generates more than 22 lines of optical comb with a line spacing of approximately 0.10 nm at the 1569-nm region using only 1.5-m-long EDF.     

Multiwavelength fiber laser using S-band erbium-doped fiber amplifier and semiconductor optical amplifier

A multiwavelength fiber ring laser that is based on an S-band erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) and a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is developed. An optical switch is used to switch the multiwavelength fiber laser between S-band and L-band. This fiber laser can stably lase seven wavelengths in the S-band or 28 wavelengths in the L-band. Additionally, the lasing wavelengths with a signal-to-noise ratio of over 33 dB and a wavelength spacing of 100 GHz are demonstrated experimentally. The average powers of the lasing wavelength in the S-band and the L-band are −7.53 and −12.15 dBm, respectively.     

Chaotic dynamics of erbium-doped fiber laser with nonlinear optical loop mirror

We experimentally and numerically demonstrate the chaotic dynamics of the erbium-doped fiber laser with a nonlinear optical loop mirror. When the polarization controllers are fixed at an appropriate orientation, we observe that the fiber laser exhibits a period-doubling route to chaos with increasing the pump power in the experiment and simulation. The numerical simulation shows a good agreement with the experimental results. The results show experimentally and numerically that the chaotic dynamics of the erbium-doped fiber laser is related to the polarization state and the pump power of light in the cavity.