Graphene-based passively Q-switched dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber laser

We demonstrate a compact Q-switched dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber (EDF) laser based on graphene as a saturable absorber (SA). By optically driven deposition of graphene on a fiber core, the SA is constructed and inserted into a diode-pumped EDF laser cavity. Also benefiting from the strong third-order optical nonlinearity of graphene to suppress the mode competition of EDF, a stable dual-wavelength Q-switching operation has been achieved using a two-reflection peak fiber Bragg grating as the external cavity mirror. The Q-switched EDF laser has a low pump threshold of 6.5 mW at 974 nm and a wide range of pulse-repetition rate from 3.3 to 65.9 kHz. The pulse duration and the pulse energy have been characterized. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first demonstration of a graphene-based Q-switched laser.     

基于高能量耗散型脉冲掺铒光纤激光器的实验研究

在正色散掺铒光纤激光器中,利用非线性偏振旋转技术实现自启动锁模,得到了具有极大光谱宽度的高能量、无波分裂耗散型脉冲.该耗散型脉冲的形成是腔内增益、损耗、非线性偏振旋转、正色散和其他非线性效应等共同作用的结果,其形成机理与传统的负色散激光器完全不同.当抽运功率为500mW时,该类型脉冲的光谱覆盖了1530—1660nm范围,半高全宽光谱宽度可达42nm以上.脉冲具有极大的正啁啾,其时间带宽积为483,而单脉冲总能量最大可达34.4nJ.     

基于FLM的L波段双波长EDFL的双稳态变换

提出和验证了一种L波段双波长掺铒光纤激光器(EDFL)双稳态控制变换和双波长开关切换的方法.将偏振控制器(PC)插入基于3 dB光纤耦合器的光纤环镜(FLM)中，并将该FLM用作L波段双波长级联线形耦合腔EDFL的公共腔镜，结果表明，调节PC可以改变FLM的反射率，实现对EDFL双稳态特性的有效控制，且双稳态特性随FLM反射率呈单调变化.利用这一性质，提出并证实，对于处在FLM最大反射率对应的双稳态第一跃变点和最小反射率对应的双稳态第二跃变点之间的任意固定抽运光功率，调节PC可实现两个稳态之间的相互变换和双波长之间的相互切换.     

Passive harmonic mode locking of twin-pulse solitons in an erbium-doped fiber ring laser

We report on the experimental observation of passive harmonic mode locking of twin-pulse solitons in an erbium-doped fiber ring laser. Experimental investigations on the passive harmonic mode locking of both the single-pulse and the twin-pulse solitons revealed that, apart from the gain recovery and acoustically induced soliton interactions, the global soliton interaction mediated through an unstable CW lasing in the laser cavity also plays an important role in the formation of the state in the laser.     

Switchable dual-wavelength polarization-maintaining erbium-doped fiber laser using an optical circulator as the all-reflecting mirror

A simple and effective switchable dual-wavelength polarization-maintaining erbium-doped fiber laser is proposed and demonstrated. Only using a uniform fiber Bragg grating written directly in a segment of the photosensitive and polarization-maintaining erbium-doped fiber as the wavelength selector and an optical circulator as the all-reflecting mirror, a stable simultaneous dual-wavelength oscillation is achieved with a wavelength spacing of 0.364 nm experimentally by exploiting the polarization hole burning effect at room temperature. The output can be switched between single- and dual-wavelength by adjusting the polarization controller. The 3-dB bandwidth and the side mode suppression ratio of the laser’s outputs are measured to be less than 0.01 nm and more than 50 dB. The power fluctuation and wavelength drift are measured to be less than 0.50 dB and 0.020 nm over an hour.     

Efficient technique for intracavity loss optimization in a dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber laser

An efficient technique to improve the quality of a tunable dual-wavelength fiber laser is reported. The power of both channels can be equalized with efficient intracavity loss optimization. The maximum power difference between the two wavelengths is less than ±0.37 dB and the output power is approximately flat within C-band.     

Numerical model of dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber ring laser based on gain-equilibrium method

A novel numerical model of the dual-wavelength fiber ring lasers utilizing gain-equilibrium method is presented by developing the two level, homogeneous Giles model. To obtain the simulation method, the gain equilibrium condition is derived and modified to adapt to the iterative procedure in simulations. This condition is confirmed by both the numerical and experimental results, which indicate that the cavity losses of both wavelength channels play important roles in maintaining stable dual-wavelength emitting. The tolerant loss-bias is 0.05 dB in simulations and 0.4 dB in experiments, respectively. The difference between numerical and experimental results reveals that the inhomogeneous linewidth broadening of EDF contributes mostly to the improved power stability, but the loss vibrations play an important role in this effect.     

Broadly tunable dual-wavelength erbium-doped ring fiber laser based on a high-birefringence fiber loop mirror

A broadly tunable dual-wavelength erbium-doped ring fiber laser based on a high-birefringence fiber loop mirror (HiBi-FLM) and a polarization controller is demonstrated experimentally. The measured transmission spectrum of HiBi-FLM covers a wide range from 1525 to 1575 nm. The wavelength of proposed laser can be flexibly tunable during this range of ∼50 nm by adjusting the polarization controller. In addition, the spacing of two wavelengths is adjustable by changing the length of HiBi fiber. The dual-wavelength lasers with the HiBi fiber length of 1 and 2 m are experimentally demonstrated and compared. The experimental results show that the proposed laser can stably operate on two wavelengths simultaneously at room temperature, and the output peak power variation is about 0.5 dB during 40 min.     

Incorporate, switchable dual-wavelength fiber laser with Bragg gratings written in a polarization-maintaining erbium-doped fiber

A stable, incorporate and switchable dual-wavelength fiber laser with two fiber Bragg gratings written in a photosensitive and polarization-maintaining erbium-doped fiber directly, that is, without splices in the laser cavity, is proposed and demonstrated. Simultaneous dual-wavelength oscillation is achieved at room temperature with a wavelength spacing of 0.343 nm. The power fluctuation and wavelength shift of single-wavelength oscillations are measured to be less than 0.24 dB and 0.013 nm over 2 h. The wavelength switchability between single- and dual-wavelength oscillations is realized by altering the voltage upon the electrostrictive ceramic actuator.     

A widely tunable dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber ring laser operating in single longitudinal mode

A new mechanism to induce polarization hole burning effect in Er-doped fiber ring lasers is presented. By using this effect, incorporating with the counter-propagation of the two light beams, the inhomogeneous in the gain medium broadening was significantly increased, and thus a stable dual-frequency Er-doped fiber ring laser operating in single longitudinal mode and single-frequency was demonstrated. Frequency spacing was tunable from 0.47 GHz to THz.     

Switchable single-longitudinal-mode dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber ring laser incorporating a semiconductor optical amplifier

We propose and demonstrate a novel single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber ring laser incorporating a semiconductor optical amplifier. The SOA biased in its low-gain regime greatly reduces the gain competition of the two wavelengths. The stable SLM operation is guaranteed by a passive triple-ring cavity and a fiber Fabry-Perot filter. The dual-wavelength output with a 40 GHz wavelength spacing is switchable in the range of 1533-1565.4 nm.     

Simple erbium-doped dual-ring fiber laser configuration for stable and tunable dual-wavelength output

We propose and experimentally investigate a stable and tunable dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber (EDF) dual-ring laser scheme. Here, two tunable bandpass filters (TBFs) are used inside the dual-ring gain cavity to generate dual-wavelength lasing. And, due to the gain competition of the EDF gain cavity, the mode-spacing (Δλ_s) of lasing dual-wavelength will be limited at different operating wavelengths. Hence, the minimum and maximum mode-spacing in the proposed EDF laser scheme are 0.75 and 15.35 nm in C-band range. Besides, the output performances of proposed fiber laser have also been studied and analyzed.     

Stable dual-wavelength single-longitudinal-mode ring erbium-doped fiber laser for optical generation of microwave frequency

We demonstrate a simple dual-wavelength ring erbium-doped fiber laser operating in single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) at room temperature. A pair of reflection type short-period fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs), which have two different center wavelengths of 1545.072 and 1545.284 nm, are used as the wavelength-selective component of the laser. A segment of unpumped polarization maintaining erbium-doped fiber (PM-EDF) is acted as a narrow multiband filter. By turning the polarization controller (PC) to enhance the polarization hole burning (PHB), the single-wavelength and dual-wavelength laser oscillations are observed at 1545.072 and 1545.284 nm. The output power variation is less than 0.6 dB for both wavelengths over a five-minute period and the optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) is greater than 50 dB. By beating the dual-wavelengths at a photodetector (PD), a microwave signal at 26.44 GHz is demonstrated.     

Stable dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber laser using novel fabricated side-polished arc-shaped fiber with deposited ZnO nanoparticles

A dual-wavelength fiber laser operating at the 1550 nm region using a side-polished arc-shaped fiber with deposited ZnO nanoparticles is proposed and demonstrated. The arc-polished fiber is fabricated by using a simple but novel approach in which a silicon carbide paper polishes one side of a conventional single-mode fiber. An arc-polished fiber with a length of 2.25 mm and an insertion loss of 0.95 dB is obtained and deposited with ZnO nanoparticles by the drop-cast method. A stable dual-wavelength output is obtained at 1562.5 and 1563.4 nm at peak powers of-9.3 and-10.1 dBm, respectively, as well as a signal-to-noise ratio of 28.4 dB and a channel spacing of 0.9 nm. Both lasing wavelengths also have narrow linewidths of between 0.045 and 0.049 nm and show little to no wavelength or power fluctuations over continued testing.     

Stable dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber ring laser with switchable spacing employing controllable channel loss

A stable dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber ring laser with switchable spacing is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. An arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) incorporating two fiber optic switches (OS) is used to as the wavelength selector. The ring cavity is divided into two cavities by a 30:70 optical coupler. Equalized dual-wavelength outputs are achieved by controlling the variable optical attenuator (VOA) inserted in the lower loss cavity. The wavelength spacing can be tuned from 0.80 to 12.05 nm. The fiber laser has good optical quality with maximum power fluctuation of 1.5 dB and side mode suppression ratios (SMSRs) higher than 71 dB.     

Dynamics of an erbium-doped fiber dual-ring laser

We report results of a numerical investigation on two-dimensional parameter-spaces of a set of four autonomous, seven-parameter, first-order ordinary differential equations, which models an erbium-doped fiber dual-ring laser. By using Lyapunov exponents to numerically characterize the dynamics of the model in the parameter-space, we show that it presents typical self-organized periodic structures embedded in a chaotic region.     

Suppression of self-pulsing in an erbium-doped fiber laser

We propose a scheme whereby the self-pulsation that commonly occurs in an erbium-doped fiber laser can be suppressed. The scheme consists of the addition of a low-power laser as an auxiliary pump. The required auxiliary pump power is only a few percent of the output lasing power. There is reasonable agreement between experimental and theoretical results.     

Switchable and tunable dual-wavelength ultrashort pulse generation in a passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber ring laser

A simple switchable and tunable dual-wavelength passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber ring laser based on nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) effect is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The NPR effect effectively induces wavelength- and intensity-dependent loss to readily implement stable dual-wavelength passively mode-locked operation. The wavelength switching and tuning of the dual-wavelength ultrashort pulse laser are achieved only by appropriately rotating the polarization controllers. The side-mode suppression ratio of the output pulse is larger than 41 dB over a wavelength-tuning range of 43.4 nm. Moreover, triple-wavelength ultrashort pulse can also be observed.     

Tunable dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber ring laser covering both C-band and L-band for high-speed communications

A simple, continuously tunable dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber ring laser (TDEDFL) structure for applications in high-speed communication systems is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The dual-wavelength tuning range is 58 nm covering both the C-band and L-band from 1547 to 1605 nm. We can not only obtain a 45% improvement over previously reported tuning ranges, but also tune the wavelength of each lasing output independently. The power equalization of the dual-wavelength outputs is less than 1.5 dB. We obtain extremely stable power variation and wavelength fluctuation at room temperature. Using this fiber laser, a 10-Gb/s data transmission over a 25-km single-mode fiber (SMF) can be made available with a power penalty of 0.5 dB is demonstrated with this laser.     

Self-starting simple structured dual-wavelength mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser using a transmission-type semiconductor saturable absorber

A self-starting simple structured dual-wavelength passively mode-locked(ML) erbium-doped fiber(EDF) laser is proposed in this Letter. An all-fiber ring cavity is adopted and a transmission-type semiconductor saturable absorber is used as modelocker. In this laser, there are two gain humps located at the 1530 nm region and the 1550 nm region, respectively. Along with the length of EDF increasing, the intensity of the hump at 1530 nm region is gradually suppressed because of the re-absorption of emission by the ground state. With the proper length of EDF, the gain intensities of two regions are very close. When the pump power is above the ML threshold, the self-starting dual-wavelength ML operation is achieved easily without manual adjustment. The two spectral peaks with close intensities are located at 1532 and 1552 nm, respectively. The effect of intracavity dispersion on the output spectrum is also experimentally demonstrated.