Reconfigurable time-domain spectral shaping of an optical pulse stretched by a fiber Bragg grating

We demonstrate a method for spectrally shaping optical pulses that is readily reconfigurable and can produce variable filter functions. This practical technique relies on a compact and robust 3.86-m-long linearly chirped fiber Bragg grating that chromatically disperses the pulse to ~30 ns. We then shape the pulse envelope, and thus the pulse spectrum, with a programmable arbitrary waveform generator and an amplitude modulator to obtain several filter functions.     

Tunable, high-repetition-rate, femtosecond pulse generation in the ultraviolet

We report efficient generation of tunable femtosecond pulses in the ultraviolet (UV) by intracavity doubling of a visible femtosecond optical parametric oscillator (OPO). The OPO, based on a 400 microm BiB3O6 crystal and pumped at 415 nm in the blue, can provide visible femtosecond signal pulses across 500-710 nm. Using a 500 microm crystal of beta-BaB2O4 internal to the OPO cavity, efficient frequency doubling of the signal pulses into the UV is achieved, providing tunable femtosecond pulses across 250-355 nm with up to 225 mW of average power at 76 MHz. Cross-correlation measurements result in UV pulses with durations down to 132 fs for 180 fs blue pump pulses.     

UWB monocycle pulse generation based on optical cross-polarization modulation

A novel all-optical method for ultra-wideband （UWB） monocycle pulses generation based on cross polarization modulation （CPM） effect in highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber is proposed and demonstrated. Due to the CPM effect between the probe light and the pump pulse, a pair of polarity-reversed Gaussian pulses is produced. After proper differential delay, an UWB monocycle pulse with 84-ps width and the fractional bandwidth of 153% is generated after photodetection.     

基于时分复用技术的甚多束光脉冲产生系统

提出了一种基于时分复用技术的全光纤、全固化的用于惯性约束聚变驱动器的甚多路光脉冲产生系统.系统中采用单纵模振荡器输出连续激光信号,利用时分复用技术结合高速电光调制技术实现序列脉冲的产生和甚多束脉冲的独立整形.采用偏振无关的声光调制技术实现甚多束脉冲的独立输出.每个序列脉冲包含8个子脉冲,子脉冲间隔设置为120ns,对子脉冲独立整形和选单后将其传输放大至微焦耳量级输出.实验成功验证了采用时分复用技术完全可以实现序列脉冲输出,各子脉冲可以独立任意整形且最后的单束输出能量为1.275μJ.     

Tunable high-repetition-rate fiber laser for the generation of pulse trains and packets

We report on a mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser suited to the generation of high-repetition-rate pulse trains or packets. The two-arm interferometer resonator performs a spectral filtering leading to the emission of short pulse packets with a high repetition rate, adjustable up to 200 GHz. A continuous pulse train with a repetition rate of up to 6.9 GHz was obtained by adding a recirculation loop inside the cavity to fill the spaces between all pulse packets.     

7-GHz high-repetition-rate mode-locked pulse generation using short-cavity phosphate glass fiber laser

A compact short-cavity high-repetition-frequency mode-locked fiber laser configured with Er³⁺/Yb³⁺ highly co-doped phosphate glass fiber and a graphene optical deposited film as saturable absorber is proposed and analyzed experimentally. The laser operates in stable mode-locked regime with fundamental repetition rate of 7.02 GHz. The output power is measured to be 1.2 mW with pump power around 80 mW, and the optical spectrum is centered about 1533.768 nm with mode spacing of 0.056 nm. As the pump power increases, the laser operates in multi-wavelength mode-locking emission state with the same longitude mode spacing. Moreover, the measure results show that different wavelength emission operates in different polarization states.     

Compact optical correlator based on one phase-only spatial light modulator

An optical correlator that utilizes one phase-only spatial light modulator (SLM) combined with a mirror is proposed and demonstrated. This system is compressed by displaying the input and filter pattern on different parts of the same SLM. The background noise is separated from the correlation signal by superimposing a high-frequency carrier with the filter pattern except in the zero-frequency regions, which will improve the signal-to-noise ratio in pattern recognition. Our architecture is compact and the cost is relatively low by utilizing only one SLM.     

Repetition rate tunable ultra-short optical pulse generation based on electrical pattern generator

An actively mode-locked laser with tunable repetition rate is proposed and experimentally demonstrated based on a programmable electrical pattern generator. By changing the repetition rate of the electrical patterns applied on the in-cavity modulator, the repetition rate of the output optical pulse sequences changes accordingly while the pulse width of the optical pulse train remains almost constant. In other words, the output ultra-short pulse train has a tunable duty cycle. In a proof-of-principle experiment, optical pulses with repetition rates of 10, 5, 2.5 and 1.25 GHz are obtained by adjusting the electrical pattern applied on the in-cavity modulator while their pulse widths remain almost unchanged.     

Amplitude noise suppression in high-repetition-rate pulse train generation from a frequency-modulated Er-Yb laser

A detailed experimental analysis of the amplitude noise in high-repetition-rate picosecond pulse trains generated by spectral filtering of a frequency-modulated Er-Yb:glass laser is reported. Two distinct sources of noise are identified, and stabilization techniques for noise suppression are proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Intensity noise suppression of ∼20 dB, corresponding to less than 2% residual amplitude fluctuations of the pulse train, has been achieved at repetition rates of 2.5 GHz and 5 GHz with pulse durations of ∼50 ps. Received: 28 July 1999 / Revised version: 13 September 1999 / Published online: 20 October 1999     

High-average-power,high-repetition-rate dual signal optical parametric oscillator based on PPMgLN

<正>A high-average-power,high-repetition-rate dual signal optical parametric oscillator based on periodically poled MgO-doped lithium niobate(PPMgLN) with a phase-reversed grating is reported.The pump laser is an acousto-optically Q-switched Nd:YVO_4 laser with a maximum average power of 7.6 W.When the repetition rate is 50 kHz and the pulse width of the pump source is 23 ns,the maximum average dual signal output power is about 1.9 W,leading to a conversion efficiency of 25%.Over a 30-min interval,the instability of the signal power measured is less than 0.5%.     

High-rate pulse-train generation by phase-only filtering of an electrooptic frequency comb: Analysis and optimization

We investigate the generation of high-rate optical pulse trains by spectral phase-only filtering of a frequency comb derived from an electrooptically phase-modulated continuous-wave laser. The technique is initially analyzed as a two-step filtering process. First, a fundamental pulse-train with repetition-rate equal to the modulation frequency is obtained by line-by-line phase-cancellation of the electrooptic frequency comb. Second, the temporal Talbot-effect is considered so that the output pulse repetition-rate is an integer multiple of the electrooptic modulation frequency. Nonidealities found in the fundamental train lead, in general, to multiplied trains with important degradations. We numerically analyze optimum modulation conditions for generation of output pulse trains with minimum peak-to-peak variations and/or maximum extinction level. On the other hand, a genetic algorithm is considered to numerically find optimum line-by-line phase-only filters that generate output multiplied trains with minimized degradations. Numerical simulations show that, in general, this second approach allows for improvement in the quality of the resultant multiplied trains, in terms of the uniformity degree and/or noise-level, compared with the pulse trains resulting from the Talbot-effect-based approach.     

Power locking of high-repetition-rate chirped pulse amplifiers

We report a feedback control scheme that minimizes the energy fluctuations of high power femtosecond pulses from a 1 kHz laser amplifier. The pulse energy variation in the frequency bandwidth 0–500 Hz was obtained by a photodiode and a low pass filter. The measured signal was fed to a proportional-integral-derivative (differential) (PID) controller that changed the amplitude of the high voltage pulses applied to a Pockels cell. The variation of average power was reduced from 1.33% RMS to 0.28% RMS, which improved the carrier-envelope phase stability from 500 mrad to 200 mrad as measured by two f-to-2f interferometers. The long term stability of the laser was kept to approximately 0.5% RMS. PACS 42.60.Jf; 42.60.Lh; 42.60.By     

Incoherent broadband optical pulse generation using an optical gate

In two-dimensional (2D) time-spreading/wavelength-hopping optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) systems, employing less coherent broadband optical pulse sources allows lower electrical operating rate and better system performance. An optical gate based scheme for generating weakly coherent(approximately incoherent) broadband optical pulses was proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Inthis scheme, the terahertz optical asymmetric demultiplexer, together with a coherent narrowband controlpulse source, turns an incoherent broadband continuous-wave (CW) light source into the required pulse source.     

Reconfigurable photonic differentiators based on all-optical phase modulation and linear filtering

We theoretically propose a novel scheme to implement two types of optical differentiators using all-optical phase modulation and linear filtering. Differences between the two differentiators rely on whether the differentiated signals are formed on the optical intensity or optical field of the output signal, which in turns depends on the relative shift between the probe wavelength and the closest notches of a linear filter. A proof-of-concept experiment is carried out using a semiconductor optical amplifier and a fiber-based delay interferometer (DI). Both differentiators are obtained for periodical Gaussian pulses and pseudo random non-return-to-zero signals at various data rates. Defined as the mean absolute deviation of the measured waveform from the ideal one, total average errors of less than 18% are observed in all cases. The impact of probe wavelength on the total average errors is investigated. Due to periodical feature of the DI spectrum, we also demonstrate the capability of multi-channel differentiation.     

Enhancement on the generation of sampled phase-only holograms

Past research has demonstrated that if the intensity image of an object is uniformly down-sampled and converted into a Fresnel hologram, the phase component alone will be sufficient to reconstruct the source image. However,due to down-sampling, the edge and line patterns are degraded heavily. In this Letter, we propose an enhancement on the parent method by incorporating an adaptive down-sampling lattice. A hologram generated with our proposed method, which is referred to as the edge-enhanced sampled phase-only hologram, preserves favorable visual quality on both the shaded regions as well as the edge patterns of the object image.     

基于双向拉曼放大的相位敏感光时域反射仪

报道了一种基于双向拉曼放大延长相位敏感光时域反射仪分布式光纤传感系统传感距离的方法.利用双向拉曼抽运对信号光进行拉曼放大, 补偿了光纤传输损耗.实验表明, 该方法提高了整个传感光纤上信号光的分布均匀性, 实现了74 km的超长传感距离和20 m的空间分辨率, 同时, 试验了不同信号光入纤功率和抽运功率对基于双向拉曼放大的相位敏感光时域反射仪系统的影响. 关键词： 相位敏感光时域反射仪 分布式光纤传感 拉曼放大     

Optical ultrawideband monocycle pulse generation based on cross-gain modulation in a semiconductor optical amplifier

A novel method for generating ultrawideband (UWB) monocycle pulses based on cross-gain modulation (XGM) in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Thanks to the XGM in the SOA, a pair of polarity-reversed optical Gaussian pulses is generated at the output of the SOA, to which a Gaussian pulse pump and a continuous-wave probe are applied. The two polarity-reversed optical pulses are then time delayed by two cascaded fiber Bragg gratings to introduce a time delay difference. A UWB monocycle pulse with a full width at half-maximum of 48 ps and a fractional bandwidth of 188% is generated at the output of a high-speed photodetector.     

Time- and wavelength-interleaved optical pulse train generation based on dispersion spreading and sectional compression

A method to generate time- and wavelength-interleaved optical pulse trains based on dispersion spreading and sectional compression is proposed and demonstrated. A 4×2 GHz time- and wavelength-interleaved pulse train is generated from an input 2 GHz mode-locked pulse train. The advantages of the proposed scheme are its simplicity and robustness, since no microwave component or multiwavelength laser source is required. In addition, we demonstrate supercontinuum generation of an ultraflat 18 nm bandwidth spectrum with less than 0.5 dB fluctuation over the 3.2 nm central bandwidth.     

All optical phase-only filtering correlation with binarized inputs by a ferroelectric liquid-crystal spatial light modulator

All optical phase-only filtering correlator is constructed with an optically addressed ferroelectric liquid-crystal spatial light modulator (FSLM) for a binarized input object and a twisted-nematic liquid-crystal spatial-light modulator for a computer-generated phase-only filter. In order to improve the discrimination capability of a phase-only filtering correlator, a binarized amplitude with maximum contrast in a FSLM is used for an object input. The contrast of binarized intensities can be maximized by adjusting the rotation angles of a FSLM and polarizers. The threshold level of binarized input objects can be controlled by changing the power of a laser incident on a FLSM. Experimental results with a high discrimination capability are presented to support the numerical correlation performance.     

Reconfigurable optical multiplexer based on liquid crystals for polymer optical fiber networks

In this work, different novel 3×1 multiplexer structures for being used in polymer optical fiber networks are proposed. Designs are compact, scalable, and of low consumption, capable of operating in a large wavelength range simultaneously 660, 850, and 1300 nm, due to the use of nematic liquid crystal cells. Light that comes from each input port is handled independently and eight operation modes are possible. Control electronics has been made using a programmable integrated circuit. Electronic system makes available the managing of the optical stage using a computer. An additional four optical sensors have been included for allowing the optical status checking. Finally, a polarization independent multiplexer has been implemented and tested. Insertion losses less than 4 dB and isolation better than 23 dB have been measured. In addition, 30-ms and 15-ms setup and rise times have been obtained. The proposed multiplexer can be used in any polymer optical fiber network, even in perfluorinated graded index one, and it can be specially useful in optical sensor networks, or in coarse wavelength division multiplexing networks.