Dynamic sideband generation in soliton fiber lasers

We show numerically that when a soliton circulating in the laser cavity experiences dynamical bifurcations, extra sets of sidebands appear in the soliton spectrum. The new sidebands have clearly different characteristics to those of the conventional soliton sidebands, indicating that there exists a new mechanism of sideband generation in the lasers.     

Design of broadband nearly-zero flattened dispersion highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber

We propose a new structure of broadband nearly-zero flattened dispersion highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber （PCF）. Through optimizing the diameters of the first two inner rings of air-holes and the GeO2 doping concentration of the core, the nonlinear coefficient is up to 47 W^-1.km^-1 at the wavelength of 1.55 um and nearly-zero flattened dispersion of ±0.5 ps/（nm·km） is achieved in the telecommunication window （1460 - 1625 nm）. Due to the use of GeO2-doped core, this innovative structure can offer not only a large nonlinear coefficient and broadband nearly-zero flattened dispersion but also low leakage losses.     

Peregrine soliton generation and breakup in standard telecommunications fiber

We present experimental and numerical results showing the generation and breakup of the Peregrine soliton in standard telecommunications fiber. The impact of nonideal initial conditions is studied through direct cutback measurements of the longitudinal evolution of the emerging soliton dynamics and is shown to be associated with the splitting of the Peregrine soliton into two subpulses, with each subpulse itself exhibiting Peregrine soliton characteristics. Experimental results are in good agreement with simulations.     

A broadband ultra flattened chromatic dispersion microstructured fiber for optical communications

A double-cladding microstructured fiber (MF) is proposed in this paper. The inner cladding of this optical fiber is composed of elliptical air holes and silica. The dependence of dispersion on the diameter of the air holes, the pitch, and the axes of the elliptical holes is investigated numerically. The proposed fiber possesses an ultra flattened dispersion curve over a wide wavelength range, and its dispersion value is small. The effective mode area is approaching to 60 μm², and the confinement loss is as low as <0.025 dB/km at 1550 nm. While choosing suitable structure parameters, an ultra dispersion-flattened MF within a broadband from1000 nm to 1900 nm can be achieved. The dispersion fluctuation is 0.6-1.0 ps/(nm·km) in all S, C and L band.     

New nonlinear and dispersion flattened photonic crystal fiber with low confinement loss

A new nonlinear dispersion flattened photonic crystal fiber with low confinement loss is proposed. This fiber has threefold symmetry core. The doped region in the core and the big air-holes in the 1st ring can make high nonlinearity in the PCF. And the small air-holes in the 1st ring and the radial increasing diameters air-holes rings in cladding can be used to achieve the dispersion properties of the PCF. We can achieve the optimized optical properties by carefully selecting the PCFs structure parameters. A PCF with flattened dispersion is obtained. The dispersion is less than 0.8 ps/(nm km) and is larger than −0.7 ps/(nm km) from 1.515 μm to 1.622 μm. The nonlinear coefficient is about 12.6456 W⁻¹ km⁻¹, the fundamental mode area is about 10.2579 μm². The confinement loss is 0.30641 dB/km. This work may be useful for effective design and fabrication of dispersion flattened photonic crystal fibers with high nonlinearities.     

Scalar soliton generation in all-polarization-maintaining, graphene mode-locked fiber laser

All-polarization-maintaining, self-starting Erbium-doped fiber laser based on graphene-saturable absorber is presented. Scalar soliton pulses with 570 fs duration and 114.1 MHz repetition rate were achieved at a 1557 nm center wavelength and with 6 nm bandwidth. The graphene-saturable absorber was formed by mechanical exfoliation of pure graphite. The laser was environmentally stable and could operate for long periods of time with linearly polarized output and degree of polarization at the level of 98%.     

全波段正常色散光子晶体光纤中超连续谱的产生

设计了一种铅硅酸盐SF57 材料的光子晶体光纤, 利用有限元法数值模拟了该光纤的 色散特性. 研究结果显示在整个透明波段光纤具有正常色散. 利用自适应分布傅里叶法求解非线性薛定谔方程, 对中心波长为1550 nm, 初始脉宽为150 fs 的脉冲在该光纤中传输进行了模拟, 获得了关于入射脉冲中心波长对称的展宽范围超过了600 nm 的超平坦连续光谱, 并且光谱具有极其稳定和 相干的特性. 关键词： 光子晶体光纤 超连续谱产生 正常色散     

新型高双折射及色散平坦光子晶体光纤研究

用平面波展开法对光子晶体光纤中电磁场的Maxwell方程组进行了求解。将光纤截面作为超元胞衍生出一个无边界的二维周期性系统，光纤纤芯等效为光子晶体中的缺陷，借助平面波法对其性质进行研究，模拟了半导体中的超格子。运用上述超格子模型，对与纤芯同列孔半径可变的高双折射及与包层中纤芯距离最近的孔半径可变的色散平坦光子晶体光纤的光学性质进行了研究，发现与纤芯同列的孔半径变化时，其双折射比传统光纤更强，而当包层中距离纤芯最近的孔半径取特定值时，可得到近零色散平坦光纤并在大范围内获得反常色散。与传统光纤和普通光子晶体光纤相比，这种新型的色散平坦光纤在密集波分复用（DWDM）光通信系统中具有更高的应用价值。     

The characters of dense dispersion managed soliton in optical fiber transmission systems

The properties of ultra-short dense dispersion-managed soliton (DBMS) in optical fiber links are investigated. They show some excellent characters, such as, reducing pulse's breathing extent greatly, facing fewer mutual interactions and tolerating larger local dispersion. In general, DBMS is more stable than a conventional dispersion-managed soliton in high-capacity systems. Excessively dense dispersion compensation is more suitable for systems with weak nonlinear effect.     

Effects of third-order dispersion on soliton switching in fiber nonlinear directional couplers

The split-step Fourier method is used to study the energy switching characteristics of fiber nonlinear directional couplers with the third-order dispersion. The effects of the third-order dispersion increases with the third-order dispersion coefficient and input power and result in pulse shift and energy decreases. Adding high-order nonlinear can partly overcomes these effects.     

Multiple defect-core hexagonal photonic crystal fiber with flattened dispersion and polarization maintaining properties

In this paper, we present a dispersion controlling technique with a multiple defect-core hexagonal photonic crystal fiber (MD-HPCF). By omitting air holes in the core region of the conventional HPCF and adjusting the size of air holes around the newly formed core, we can successfully design low flattened dispersion PCF with low confinement loss, as well as high birefringence. The low flattened dispersion feature, as well as the low confinement losses and high birefringence are the main advantages of the proposed PCF structure, making it suitable as chromatic dispersion controller, dispersion compensator, and/or polarization maintaining fiber.     

Supercontinuum broadening in all-normal dispersion photonic crystal fiber by means of soliton compression in standard single-mode fiber

Using standard single-mode fiber as high-order soliton compressor for broadening supercontinuum in an 80 m long all-normal dispersion photonic crystal fiber is investigated experimentally and numerically. An analytical formula for calculating proper fiber input power to generate the broadest supercontinuum is derived. The numerical results show that the formula is more accurate in high power level corresponding to the soliton order which is larger than two. The measured supercontinuum ? 20 dB bandwidth is broadened from 84.2 nm to 277.1 nm by using a 20 m long standard single-mode fiber without enhancing fiber input power. Numerical calculations of the amplitude noise in the output spectra show that using soliton compression effect can efficiently broaden the spectral bandwidth and not generate obvious noises.     

Investigation of soliton pairs in an erbium-doped fiber laser with large normal dispersion

We experimentally investigate the soliton pairs in a passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser with large normal cavity dispersion. By adjusting the polarization state, four different kinds of soliton pairs are achieved. The pulses in soliton pairs exhibit different temporal separations, and show randomly distributed spikes on the top-flat of spectra. The pulse-pulse interactions in the soliton pairs are investigated, and it is suggested that the pulse separation, pulse duration, and their relative intensities all determine the strength of pulse interactions.     

Numerical investigation on coherent mid-infrared supercontinuum generation in chalcogenide PCFs with near-zero flattened all-normal dispersion profiles

We design a novel all-normal flat near-zero dispersion chalcogenide photonic crystal fiber(PCF) for generating midinfrared(MIR) supercontinuum(SC). The proposed PCF with a core made of As_2Se_3 glass and uniform air holes in the cladding is selectively filled with As_2S_5 glass. By carefully engineering the PCF with an all-normal flat near-zero dispersion profile, the anomalous-dispersion soliton effect is reduced, thus enabling broadband highly coherent SC to be generated.We also investigate the influence of the pulse parameters on the SC generation. Broadband SC covering 1.4 μm–10 μm with perfect coherence is achieved by pumping the proposed 3-cm-long PCF with 3-μm 100-fs pulses. The results provide a potential all-fiber realization of the broadband coherent MIR-SC.     

中红外色散平坦硫系光子晶体光纤设计及性能研究

本文以自制Ge20Sb15Se65硫系玻璃为基质材料,设计一种正八边形结构色散平坦型中红外硫系光子晶体光纤,并采用多极法对其中红外色散和传输特性进行数值研究.结果表明:控制该光纤占空比(d/Λ)在0.323—0.367之间,其色散及传输特性在3—5μm范围内可调.当孔间距Λ=3.4μm,孔直径d=1.1μm时,光纤在4.1—4.9μm波段的色散值在0.8—0.8 ps·nm 1·km 1波动,且具备单模低损耗传输(Loss0.049dB/m),小模场面积(Aeff8.46μm2)特性,适合于中红外非线性应用领域.     

Spatio-spectral dynamics of soliton pulsation with breathing behavior in the anomalous dispersion fiber laser

We have numerically and experimentally observed the soliton pulsation with obvious breathing behavior in the anomalous fiber laser mode-locked by a nonlinear polarization rotation technique. The numerical study of the soliton pulsation with breathing behavior was analyzed through the split-step Fourier method at first, and it was found that the phase difference caused by the polarization controller would affect the breathing characteristics. Then, taking advantage of the dispersive Fourier transform technique, we confirmed the breathing characteristic of soliton pulsation in the same fiber laser as the simulation model experimentally. These results complement the research on the breathing characteristic of soliton pulsation.     

Design of double cladding dispersion flattened photonic crystal fiber with deformation insensitive outer cladding air-holes

A design of double cladding dispersion flattened photonic crystal fiber (DF-PCF) is proposed. To employ traditional stack and draw technology, the cladding of the DF-PCF is consisted of triangular periodic air-holes with the same hole to hole pitch. Simulation results show that the small air-holes in the inner cladding are mainly for dispersion management. The large air-holes in the outer cladding are mainly used for light confinement and have little impact on the dispersion tailoring. Thus, the dispersion profile of the double cladding DF-PCFs is insensitive to the deformation of air-holes in the outer cladding. Considering that the larger air-holes are apt to deform in the drawing procedure, the characteristics mentioned above make the realization of DF-PCFs relative easy by employing conventional stack and draw technology and modest air-hole rings (less than 10 rings) in the cladding.     

Blue light and infrared continuum generation by soliton fission in a microstructured fiber

The nonlinear propagation of ultrashort pulses in a microstructured fiber is experimentally investigated. By working around 800 nm, in the anomalous dispersion region, clear evidence of pulse break-up and soliton propagation is obtained. This is consistent with the recently suggested mechanism of spectral broadening based upon the fission of higher order solitons into red-shifted fundamental solitons and blue-shifted dispersion waves. When 190-fs pulses at high input intensities are used, the output spectrum is made of a broad infrared supercontinuum coexisting with a sharp and very intense blue peak that takes up to 24% of the input power. We tentatively propose an explanation of this effect by invoking pulse-trapping phenomena controlled by the group-velocity matching of infrared and visible pulses. PACS 42.65.Tg; 42.81.Dp     

Ultra broadband-flattened dispersion photonic crystal fiber for supercontinuum generation

We propose an improved design of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with ultra broadband-flattened dispersion and ultra-low confinement loss in the telecommunication window.The design is considerably suitable for the generation of wideband supercontinuum spectrum.Numerical results reveal that the proposed PCF structure possesses a low dispersion of 0±1.5 ps/(nm·km) in the wavelengths ranging from 1.134 to 1.805 μm (approximately 700-nm bandwidth) with a confinement loss of less than 10 8 dB/km.In addition,a nonlinear coefficient greater than 11.47 (W·km) 1 and a dispersion slope of as low as 0.005694 ps/(nm 2 ·km) are obtained at 1.55-μm wavelength.Moreover,a symmetric flat supercontinuum spectrum with a 10-dB bandwidth of 190 nm is achieved in a 3-m-long fiber,verifying the excellent optical features of the innovative PCF.     

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.