Supercontinuum generation in the irregular point of hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

Broadband supercontinuums (SC) are generated by soliton self-frequency shift (SSFS) of hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF) in our laboratory. With the pump works at 810 nm when the pump power increase from 400 to 600 mW, the Raman Soliton shifts from 2089 to 2215 nm, the bandwidth of SC increases from 2213 to 2320 nm. The ultra-violet part of SC is below 180 nm, and the mid-infrared part of SC exceeds 2500 nm. Moreover, the influence of pump power on SC is also analyzed.     

Large-pitch kagome-structured hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

We report the fabrication and characterization of a new type of hollow-core photonic crystal fiber based on large-pitch (approximately 12 microm) kagome lattice cladding. The optical characteristics of the 19-cell, 7-cell, and single-cell core defect fibers include broad optical transmission bands covering the visible and near-IR parts of the spectrum with relatively low loss and low chromatic dispersion, no detectable surface modes and high confinement of light in the core. Various applications of such a novel fiber are also discussed, including gas sensing, quantum optics, and high harmonic generation.     

Dynamics of blueshifted floating pulses in gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fibers

Frequency blueshifting was recently observed in light pulses propagating on gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fibers where a plasma has been produced due to photoionization of the gas. One of the propagation models that is adequate to describe the actual experimental observations is here investigated. It is a nonlinear Schrödinger equation with an extra term, to which we applied a self-similar change of variables and found its accelerating solitons. As in other NLS-related models possessing accelerating solitons, there exist asymmetrical pulses that decay as they propagate in some parameter region that was here well defined.     

Partially liquid-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber polarizer

A compact fiber polarizer is demonstrated by the filling of selected air holes of a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with a liquid. The liquid-filling results in an asymmetric waveguide structure, leading to a large polarization dependent loss. A 6 mm long ethanol-filled PCF exhibits a polarization extinction ratio of ～18 dB over a wavelength range from 1480 nm to 1600 nm.     

Selective mode excitation in hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

Modes are selectively excited by launching light through the cladding from the side into a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber. Measuring the total output power at the end of the fiber as a function of the angle of incidence of the exciting laser beam provides a powerful diagnostic for characterizing the cladding bandgap. Furthermore, various types of modes on either side of the bandgap are excited individually, and their nearfield images are obtained.     

Theory of photoionization-induced blueshift of ultrashort solitons in gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fibers

We show theoretically that the photoionization process in a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber filled with a Raman-inactive noble gas leads to a constant acceleration of solitons in the time domain with a continuous shift to higher frequencies, limited only by ionization loss. This phenomenon is opposite to the well-known Raman self-frequency redshift of solitons in solid-core glass fibers. We also predict the existence of unconventional long-range nonlocal soliton interactions leading to spectral and temporal soliton clustering. Furthermore, if the core is filled with a Raman-active molecular gas, spectral transformations between redshifted, blueshifted, and stabilized solitons can take place in the same fiber.     

Highly efficient Cherenkov radiation generation in the irregular point of hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

Highly efficient Cherenkov radiation(CR) is generated by the soliton self-frequency shift(SSFS) in the irregular point of a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber(HC-PCF) in our laboratory.The impacts of pump power and wavelength on the CR are investigated,and the corresponding nonlinear processes are discussed.When the average power of the 120 fs pump pulse increases from 500 mW to 700 mW,the Raman soliton shifts from 2210 nm to 2360 nm,the output power of the CR increases by 2.3 times,the maximum output power ratio of the CR at 539 nm to that of the residual pump is calculated to be 24.32:1,the width of the output optical spectrum at the visible wavelength broadens from 35 nm to 62 nm,and the conversion efficiency η of the CR in the experiment can be above 32%.     

High peak power operation and harmonic generation of a single-polarization, Yb-doped photonic crystal fiber amplifier

We report on the use of a single-polarization, 41 μm core-diameter, intrinsically single-mode photonic crystal fiber (PCF) to obtain high peak power (up to 800 kW), 1 ns-duration pulses in a 100:1 linearly polarized, intrinsically single-mode (M²  1.2) output. By transmitting the PCF output through nonlinear crystals, we also obtained efficient second, third, and fourth harmonic generation resulting in peak power >400 kW in the visible (green, 531 nm) and 200 kW in the UV (265.5 nm). To our knowledge these results represent the highest peak power obtained in a linearly polarized output from a fiber and the highest peak power in the visible and UV obtained through harmonic generation of the direct fiber output.     

In-line fiber-optic etalon formed by hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

A novel fiber-optic in-line etalon formed by splicing a section of hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HCPCF) in between two single-mode fibers is proposed and demonstrated, for the first time to our knowledge. Such a HCPCF-based etalon acts as an excellent optical waveguide to form a Fabry-Perot interferometer and hence allows the cavity length to be as long as several centimeters with good visibility as the transmission loss of the HCPCF is much smaller than that of a hollow core fiber; this offers great potential to generate a practical dense fiber-optic sensor network with spatial frequency division-multiplexing. This novel etalon is demonstrated for strain measurement, and the experimental results show that a good visibility of 0.3 and a strain accuracy of better than +/- 5 microepsilon are achieved.     

Electromagnetically induced transparency in Rb-filled coated hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

We report the observation of lambda-configuration electromagnetically induced transparency as well as optical pumping in rubidium-filled kagome-structure hollow-coated-core photonic crystal fiber. We show that a polydimethylsiloxane coating of the fiber core reduces the linewidth of the transparency below that which could be expected for an uncoated fiber. The measured 6 MHz linewidth was dominated by optical broadening.     

Metrology of laser-guided particles in air-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

Micrometer-sized particles are trapped in front of an air-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber using a novel dual-beam trap. A backward guided mode produces a divergent beam that diffracts out of the core, and simultaneously a focused laser beam launches a forward-propagating mode into the core. By changing the backward/forward power balance, a trapped particle can be selectively launched into the hollow core. Once inside, particles can be optically propelled along several meters of fiber with mobilities as high as 19 cm·s(-1) W(-1) (precisely measured using in-fiber Doppler velocimetry). The results are in excellent agreement with theory. The system allows determination of fiber loss as well as the mass density and refractive index of single particles.     

Low loss broadband transmission in hypocycloid-core Kagome hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

We report on the fabrication of a seven-cell-core and three-ring-cladding large-pitch Kagome-lattice hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF) with a hypocycloid-shaped core structure. We demonstrate experimentally and theoretically that the design of this core shape enhances the coupling inhibition between the core and cladding modes and offers optical attenuation with a baseline of ～180?dB/km over a transmission bandwidth larger than 200?THz. This loss figure rivals the state-of-the-art photonic bandgap HC-PCF while offering an approximately three times larger bandwidth and larger mode areas. Also, it beats the conventional circular-core-shaped Kagome HC-PCF in terms of the loss. The development of this novel (to our knowledge) HC-PCF has potential for a number of applications in which the combination of a large optical bandwidth and a low loss is a prerequisite.     

Improved air-silica photonic crystal with a triangular airhole arrangement for hollow-core photonic bandgap fiber design

We propose an improved photonic crystal (PC) cladding design for existing air-guiding photonic bandgap (PBG) fibers whose cladding airholes are arranged in a triangular lattice pattern. By increasing the sizes of concentrated silica regions in the cladding PC, we can have a larger degree of freedom in controlling the cladding bandgap regions. We predict that a fiber made from this type of cladding would perform better in terms of the PBG-guiding wavelength range, radiation loss owing to finite cladding size, and the ability to avoid surface mode problems.     

Optical rotation conveyor belt based on a polarization-maintaining hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

Optical Review - Hollow-core photonic crystal fibers (HCPCFs), a form of optical conveyer belts, have been used to guide particles for many years. However, only the translational motions of a...     

Stokes amplification regimes in quasi-cw pumped hydrogen-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

Pure rotational stimulated Raman scattering spectra containing nine strong spectral components were generated from a approximately 11 m long hollow-core photonic crystal fiber filled with hydrogen and pumped with nanosecond pulses having energies around 100-300 nJ. Observation of both transient and steady-state scattering threshold behavior is reported. Passage from the transient to the steady state is observed with a pulse as long as 14 ns. Convenient analytical expressions for energy and power threshold are deduced for the present configuration.     

Generation of few-cycle radially-polarized infrared pulses in a gas-filled hollow-core fiber

We perform a numerical study for temporally compressing radially-polarized(RP) infrared pulses in a gas-filled hollow-core fiber(HCF). The dynamic transmission and nonlinear compression of RP pulses centered at wavelengths of0.8 m, 1.8 m, 3.1 m, and 5.0 m in HCFs are simulated. By comparing the propagation of pulses with the same optical cycles and intensity, we find that under proper conditions these pulses can be compressed down to 2–3 cycles. In the transverse direction, the spatiotemporal beam profile ameliorates from 0.8-m to 1.8-m and 3.1-m pulses before the appearance of high-order dispersion. These results show an alternative method of scaling generation for delivering RP infrared pulses in gas-filled HCFs, which can obtain energetic few-cycle pulses, and will be beneficial for relevant researches in the infrared scope.     

空芯带隙型光子晶体光纤整体空气孔包层导光特性研究

 传统光纤包层中仅存在泄漏的倏逝波,能量较小,不利于包层传感的应用。增大包层中的能量,实现整体包层导光是提高光纤传感灵敏度的有效途径。从理论上分析了利用空芯带隙型光子晶体光纤(HC-PCF)包层进行导光的机理。在实验上选用带隙外的冷光源和激光对一种典型结构的HC-PCF进行了空气孔包层的导光实验,并利用折射率引导型光子晶体光纤和单模光纤进行对比实验。结果表明,带隙范围外光波在HC-PCF中传输时将不受禁带效应的约束泄露至包层中重新分布。包层中SiO2与空气孔的周期型结构将光波约束在高折射率介质中,实现HC-PCF整体空气孔包层中光波的稳定传输。PBG-PCF包层的整体导光在传感上有提高灵敏度的潜在价值。     

Black-light continuum generation in a silica-core photonic crystal fiber

We report the observation of a broadband continuum spanning from 350 to 470 nm in the black-light region of the electromagnetic spectrum as a result of picosecond pumping a solid-core silica photonic crystal fiber at 355 nm. This was achieved despite strong absorption and a large normal dispersion of silica glass in the UV. Further investigations reveal that the continuum generation results from the interplay of intermodally phase-matched four-wave mixing and cascaded Raman scattering. We also discuss the main limitations in terms of bandwidth and power due to temporal walk-off, fiber absorption, and the photo darkening effect, and we suggest simple solutions.     

Widely tunable optical parametric generation in a photonic crystal fiber

We report on the observation of widely tunable optical parametric generation in a photonic crystal fiber. The frequency shift of the generated sidebands that arise from modulational instability is strongly dependent on the detuning of the pump from the fiber's zero-dispersion wavelength. We are able to demonstrate experimentally more than 450 nm of sideband tunability as we tune the pump wavelength over 10 nm. Excellent agreement has been found between the experimentally measured and theoretically predicted shifts.     

Femtosecond parabolic pulse nonlinear compression with gas-filled hollow-core fiber

We study theoretically the spectral intensity evolutions of the femtosecond Gaussian and parabolic pulses with different initial pulse energies and compare the nonlinear compressions of these pulses based on a meter-long hollow-core fiber filled with neon for different initial pulse durations. The pulses are first coupled into gas-filled hollow-core fiber for spectrum broadening, then compressed by the optimal chirp compensation. The parabolic pulse possesses a shorter pulse duration, larger peak power, and cleaner wings than Gaussian pulse. The properties are useful for compressing the pulses and thus generating the high-energy, short-duration pulses.