Passive harmonic mode locking of soliton bunches in a fiber ring laser

We report on the experimental observation of passive harmonic mode locking of bunches of single-pulse solitons or twin-pulse solitons in an Erbium-doped fiber ring laser. Experimental investigations on the phenomenon revealed that, although the soliton interaction between the adjacent single-/twin-pulse solitons in a bunch is weaker than that of the pulse interaction in the twin-pulse solitons, a soliton bunch could also function as a unit and form the state of passively harmonic mode-locking. Harmonic mode-locking is one of the intrinsic characteristics of soliton emission in passively mode-locked fiber ring lasers. It can be formed based on the single-pulse soliton, twin-pulse soliton, or bunch of solitons.     

孤子激光器及其发展

激光和孤子研究的进展,导致一种新型的、输出脉宽及形状可控的超短光脉冲激光器——孤子激光器的诞生。孤子激光器在光通讯、光计算、超高速现象的研究、超高速光电子器件的研制等方面有其独特的应用。它也使我们有可能对孤子效应本身进行深入研究。本文将叙述在单模光纤中形成孤子的机制,孤子激光及喇曼孤子激光原理,孤子及孤子激光研究的进展,包括孤子激光的稳定性、孤子自频移以及孤子间的相互作用力等。最后介绍一些已经出现的或将来可能出现的应用,并指出这是一个正在迅速发展的研究领域。     

Widely tunable narrowband soliton source generation in tellurite microstructured fibers

We demonstrate widely tunable soliton and dispersive wave source generation in a highly nonlinear tellurite microstructured fiber pumped by a 1550 nm femtosecond fiber laser. The spectral range covered by the soliton and dispersive wave source is as wide as 1100 nm from 1150 to 2250 nm. It is shown that the spectral linewidth of the soliton and dispersive wave can be controlled by changing the length of the tellurite microstructured fiber easily owing to the dispersion-induced pulse broadening effects. This light source using tellurite microstructured fiber could open wide applications.     

全正色散多波长被动锁模耗散孤子掺镱光纤激光器

报道了一种带有周期性双折射光纤滤波器的全正色散多波长被动锁模耗散孤子掺镱光纤激光器. 通过数值模拟发现加入滤波器后激光器能输出多波长耗散孤子脉冲, 调节滤波器带宽大小可以得到不同波长个数和波长间隔的多波长锁模耗散孤子脉冲. 在激光器产生的四波长和五波长耗散孤子脉冲中观察到了耗散孤子分子, 并且通过调节滤波器参数和饱和功率可以改变多波长脉冲中耗散孤子分子的个数和波长. 这是在被动锁模光纤激光器中首次实现包含有耗散孤子分子的多波长脉冲. 另外还在实验上实现了全正色散双波长被动锁模耗散孤子的产生. 关键词： 全正色散 耗散孤子 多波长脉冲 孤子分子     

Effect of gain media characteristics on the formation of soliton molecules in fiber laser

Erbium doped fiber and Er³⁺/Yb³⁺ codoped phosphate glass fiber are used as the laser media, respectively, to achieve self-started mode-locking based on nonlinear polarization rotation. It is found that the formation of the soliton molecule is the popular phenomenon in fiber laser. The laser media with high gain coefficient and short length is benefit of the formation of the soliton molecule at fundamental repetition rate and will generate evident soliton molecule pulse profile with strong accompanied structures. The achievement of soliton molecule owes to the partial operation of polarization filter effect in laser cavity due to the weak nonlinear polarization rotation in gain media with high gain coefficient and short length.     

Predicting supercontinuum pulse collisions with simulations exhibiting temporal aliasing

Interactions between supercontinuum (SC) light pulses, produced by the propagation of rapidly sequenced picosecond pump laser pulses along a photonic crystal fiber, result in spectral broadening, which we attribute to interpulse soliton collisions. This phenomenon was measured experimentally, following our observation of spectral broadening in numerical simulations that exhibit so-called "pulse wraparound" or "temporal aliasing." This occurs in simulations with narrow time grids: as early parts of the SC pulse leave the computational time domain, they "reenter" at the beginning and so interact with later parts of the evolving SC pulse. We show that this provides an effective model to predict the experimentally observed spectral changes.     

基于级联型光纤的孤子自频移增强特性

设计了一种10m掺铥光纤级联于3m大模场光子晶体光纤末端的结构,利用400fs、1 550nm脉冲光产生孤子自频移,在入射光功率相同的情况下,掺铥光纤末端的孤子频移量比大模场光纤末端多100~150nm,平均多30%左右.孤子与泵浦光在掺铥光纤末端的输出光谱表明,残留泵浦光作用于Tm3+,在1.8~2.1μm范围产生受激辐射,从而增强了拉曼效应,导致孤子自频移增强.实验结果揭示了一种增强孤子自频移效应的方法,对于了解孤子在光纤中频移特性和提高基于孤子自频移的可调谐光源的调谐范围等具有参考意义.     

Vector dissipative solitons in graphene mode locked fiber lasers

Vector soliton operation of erbium-doped fiber lasers mode locked with atomic layer graphene was experimentally investigated. Either the polarization rotation or polarization locked vector dissipative solitons were experimentally obtained in a dispersion-managed cavity fiber laser with large net cavity dispersion, while in the anomalous dispersion cavity fiber laser, the phase locked nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) solitons and induced NLSE soliton were experimentally observed. The vector soliton operation of the fiber lasers unambiguously confirms the polarization insensitive saturable absorption of the atomic layer graphene when the light is incident perpendicular to its 2-dimentional (2D) atomic layer.     

Soliton Transmission Using Actively Mode－locked Fiber Ring Laser at 2．5GHz and 5GHz

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Wideband supercontinuum generation in tapered tellurite microstructured fibers

Enhanced soliton trapping of dispersive waves in a tapered tellurite microstructured fiber pumped by a 1556 nm femtosecond fiber laser is demonstrated. The short wavelength edge of supercontinuum light is extended from 960 to 600 nm after tapering the tellurite microstructured fiber, which is caused by the enhanced soliton trapping of dispersive waves owing to the changing group velocities in tapered fibers. Wide-band supercontinuum light source spanning from 600 to >2400 nm is generated in tapered tellurite micro-structured fibers. Our experimental and simulated results show that short length (several centimeters) zero-dispersion-wave length decreasing highly nonlinear fiber has a potential for generating wideband supercontinuum light source expanding from visible to mid-infrared region.     

Tunable Supercontinuum Generated in a Yb~(3+)-Doped Microstructure Fiber Pumped by Ti:Sapphire Femtosecond Laser

We experimentally demonstrate that a tunable supercontinuum(SC) can be generated in a Yb3+-doped microstructure fiber by the concept of wavelength conversion with a Ti:sapphire femtosecond(fs) laser as the pump.Experimental results show that an emission light around 1040 nm in an anomalous dispersion region is first generated and amplified by fs pulses in the normal dispersion region. Then, SC spectra from 1100 to 1380 nm and 630 to 840 nm can be achieved by combined effects of higher-order soliton fission and Raman soliton self-frequency shift in the anomalous dispersion region and self-phase modulation, dispersive wave, and four-wave mixing in the normal dispersion region. It is also demonstrated that the 20 nm change of pump results in a 280 nm broadband shift of soliton and the further red-shift of soliton is limited by OH-absorption at 1380 nm.     

Soliton molecule in fiber laser

The soliton molecule is achieved in nonlinear polarization rotation fiber laser. The structure of soliton molecule is heterogeneous diatomic molecule. The soliton molecule originates from the splitting of the high energy soliton. The dips of the soliton molecule spectra show that there is the interaction between the constituents of the soliton molecule, resulting in that the constituents are in the bound state as a unit. The laser bias can change the fine structure of the soliton molecule, which can be observed in the autocorrelator and oscilloscope.     

Zinc-oxide/PDMS-clad tapered fiber saturable absorber for passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser

We propose and demonstrate a passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser(EDFL) based on zincoxide/polydimethylsiloxane(Zn O/PDMS) saturable absorber(SA) that evanescently interacts with the light on a tapered fiber. The Zn O/PDMS composite is coated on the whole surface of the tapered fiber to guarantee the maximum efficiency of the SA device, with a measured insertion loss of 0.87 d B and a modulation depth of 6.4%. The proposed laser can generate soliton mode-locking operation at a threshold power of 33.07 m W. The generated output pulse yields a repetition rate and pulse width of 9.77 MHz and 1.03 ps, respectively. These results indicate that the proposed Zn O/PDMS-clad tapered fiber could be useful as an efficient, compatible, and low-cost SA device for ultrafast laser applications.     

Improvement of the fiber raman soliton laser for femtosecond optical pulse generation

Femtosecond optical pulses generated from a synchronously pumped fiber Raman soliton laser (FRASL) have been shown to have large excess noise and high background light (i.e., the pedestal) levels. In this paper, to improve the FRASL, the operation characteristics of the FRASL are investigated both theoretically and experimentally. It is shown that real femtosecond soliton oscillation in the FRASL can be obtained only when the soliton self-frequency shift (SSFS) effect in the fibers is suppressed and proper choices of both the Stokes oscillation wavelength and the pump power level are required for the SSFS suppression in the FRASL. By using a tunable all-fiber Raman ring laser, optical pulses as short as 400 fs with a low white AM noise level of -120 dBc / Hz have been generated from the compact FRASL with SSFS suppression. Based on the theoretical analyses, we propose to use an intracavity saturable absorber to prevent the generation of high-level Stokes background light in the FRASL, and the feasibility of this method is shown by numerical simulations.     

Creating very slow optical gap solitons with a grating-assisted coupler

We show that optical gap solitons can be produced with velocities down to 4% of the group velocity of light using a grating-assisted coupler, i.e., a fiber Bragg grating that is linearly coupled to a non-Bragg fiber over a finite domain. Forward- and backward-moving light pulses in the non-Bragg fiber(s) that reach the coupling region simultaneously couple into the Bragg fiber and form a moving soliton, which then propagates beyond the coupling region. Two of these solitons can collide to create an even slower or stopped soliton.     

Bound soliton pulses in passively mode-locked fiber laser

A passively mode-locked soliton fiber ring laser was successfully demonstrated, and bound soliton pulses with an FWHM pulsewidth of 326 fs and fixed separation of 938 fs were first observed. The number of bound soliton pairs in the cavity can be controlled under lower pump power. The transmission effects were investigated by injecting bound soliton pulses into a single mode fiber.     

Quantized separations of phase-locked soliton pairs in fiber lasers

We report the discovery of a quantization of the separation between phase-locked soliton pairs that is related to the radiation waves known as Kelly sidebands, in a passively mode-locked fiber ring laser. Our numerical simulations that predict this phenomenon have been confirmed by our experimental results.     

Harmonic mode locking by synchronous optical pumping of a saturable absorber with the residual pump

An actively mode-locked fiber laser is demonstrated, for the first time to our knowledge, by modulation of a saturable-absorber mirror with the light used simultaneously for pumping the gain fiber. Stabilization of a harmonically passive mode-locked fiber laser that generates soliton pulses of 550-fs duration is obtained with this technique. The results indicate a reduction of supermode suppression by more than 55 dB. The timing jitter is improved by 9 dB.     

Generation of picosecond soliton pulses with tunable repetition rate by modulational instability

Picosecond soliton pulse train has been obtained from a passively mode locked erbium-doped ring fiber laser. The passive mode-locking mechanism that is at play in this laser relies on the modulational instability (MI) theory. By accurately adjusting the polarization setting of the circulating cavity light, the repetition rate can be tuned from 58 to 114 GHz. Theoretical explanations has also been given.     

Controllable dissipative soliton and Q-switched pulse emission in a normal dispersion fiber laser using SESAM and cavity loss tuning mechanism

We report on the controllable generation of the dissipative soliton and the Q-switched pulse in a normal dispersion fiber ring laser. The hybrid saturable absorber is used to obtain the dissipative soliton or the Q-switched pulse by slightly adjusting the polarization controller. Based on the experimental results and theoretical analysis, the controllable dissipative soliton and Q-switched pulse emission can be induced by the cavity loss tuning mechanism of the fiber laser.