Investigation on threshold power of stimulated Brillouin scattering in photonic crystal fiber

We have developed a theoretical approach to simulate stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) generation in photonic crystal fiber (PCF). The threshold condition for the SBS occurrence has been derived as a function of fiber parameters and input pump power. A particular emphasis is given to the influence of the input pump power and fiber length on the Brillouin gain in the PCF. To assess threshold pump power accurately, the pump depletion effect has been included by employing the 1% criterion. This simulation can anticipate the Brillouin threshold gain value precisely. The threshold gain varies from 14 to 18 depending on the PCF length.     

Slow-light delay enhancement in small-core pure silica photonic crystal fiber based on Brillouin scattering

We demonstrate that we realize large-delay slow light based on stimulated Brillouin scattering in a short length of our fabricated small-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF). The cavity effect from the partially reflective splices in the end of the PCF enhances slow-light delay significantly. Our experiments show that large slow-light delay can be easily realized in a very short length of the PCF with a moderate pump power. Up to a one-half pulse-width delay is achieved in only 50 m of PCF in a single pump segment.     

Tunable multiwavelength Brillouin-erbium ring-cavity fiber laser with short-length photonic crystal fiber

A multi-wavelength Brillouin-erbium ring-cavity fiber laser utilizing 2-m erbium doped fiber (EDF) and 70-m high nonlinear photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is proposed and demonstrated. The output characteristics and also the impacts of pump and Brillouin pump (BP) on the output spectra are investigated in detail. The output number and wavelength location of Brillouin lines are tunable by adjusting the power of 1465 nm pump and BP, and a 5-channel output within 11 nm (1551–1562 nm) tuning range is achieved by choosing appropriate pump power.     

Supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fiber using femtosecond pulses

Supercontinuum (SC) generation in photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is demonstrated using an amplified femtosecond stretched pulses. The stretched pulse is obtained from a mode-locked Erbium-doped fiber laser and operates at 1564 nm with a repetition rate of 8.27 MHz and a pulse width of 340 fs. Using a 50 m long PCF, broad SC spectra are observed starting from 1220 and 1050 nm for the corresponding 5.1 and 177 kW pump and spanning a wavelength region of more than 1750 nm. At a maximum peak pump power of 177 kW, flat SC which extends over bandwidths of 660 and 486 nm are obtained using 50 and 100 m piece of PCF respectively. However, the output power level is higher for the 100 m PCF especially at longer wavelength region.     

Dependence of the brillouin frequency shift on strain and temperature in a photonic crystal fiber

The dependence of the Brillouin frequency shift on strain in a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) was measured at a wavelength of 1320 nm for the first time to the authors' knowledge. Together with measurements of the dependence of the Brillouin frequency shift on temperature in the PCF, we demonstrate the feasibility of the highly precise simultaneous measurement of temperature and strain by use of the PCF in a distributed Brillouin sensing system with a spatial resolution of 15 cm.     

Q-switched thulium-doped photonic crystal fiber laser

We report a novel, Tm-doped photonic crystal fiber (PCF) actively Q-switched oscillator that provides ~8.9 kW peak power with 435 μJ, 49 ns pulses at 10 kHz repetition rate at 2 μm wavelength. This fiber has a mode-field area >1000 μm2, the largest of any flexible PCF providing diffraction-limited beam quality to the best of our knowledge. As an application, the oscillator is used as pump to generate >350 nm broadening in ~50 m of SMF-28 fiber.     

0.16 nm spaced multi-wavelength Brillouin fiber laser in a figure-of-eight configuration

A stable and compact multi-wavelength Brillouin fiber laser (BFL) operating at room temperature is experimentally demonstrated using a 100 m long photonic crystal fiber (PCF) in conjunction with a figure-of-eight configuration. At a Brillouin pump (BP) level of 15.3 dBm, 7 simultaneous lines with 20 GHz or 0.16 nm line spacing is achieved by removing the odd-order Stokes lines. The anti-Stokes lines are also generated via four wave mixing process in the laser cavity. Compared with the Erbium-based multi-wavelength laser, this BFL has advantages in term of channel spacing and flexibility in the choice of operating wavelength. The output spectrum of the proposed BFL can be tuned by 80 nm, dependent on the availability of an appropriate BP source. The multi-wavelength BFL shows a good stability with power fluctuations of less than 0.5 dB over more than 3 h.     

Gain and gain-flatness improved photonic crystal fiber Raman amplifier based on a dual-pass amplification configuration with single pump laser

A gain and gain-flatness improved L-band dual-pass Raman fiber amplifier (RFA) utilizing a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) as gain medium is demonstrated. By introducing complementary gain spectra of typical forward and backward pumping single-pass RFA using the same PCF, we finally achieve average net gain level of 22.5 dB with a ±0.8 dB flattening gain in 20-nm bandwidth from 1595 nm to 1615 nm, which is rare in RFAs with only one single pump and no flattening filter. Compared with the single-pass pump configurations, gain level, flatness and bandwidth are greatly improved by using the dual-pass amplification configuration. The limitation of this configuration caused by multi-path interference (MPI) noise and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is also discussed.     

Simple tunable multiwavelength Brillouin/Erbium fiber laser utilizing short-length photonic crystal fiber

We have demonstrated a simple ring cavity tunable multiwavelength Brillouin/Erbium fiber laser (MWBEFL), in which 70 m highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber (HNL-PCF) is used as the Brillouin gain medium. The fiber laser utilizes recycling mechanism to enhance stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). The configuration that consists of only 3 optical components is easy to be integrated and improves the practicality. At the maximum 1480 nm pump power of 110 mW and the Brillouin pump power of 3 dBm, 10 stable output channels with more than 10 dB optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) and 0.078 nm channel spacing could achieve 10 nm tuning ranges.     

Stimulated Brillouin scattering by the interaction between different-order optical and acoustical modes in an As_2Se_3 photonic crystal fiber

Brillouin gain spectra(BGS)in an As2Se3 photonic crystal fiber(PCF)are investigated numerically.The profiles of the BGS are simulated by calculating the characteristics of different-order optical and acoustic waves in the PCFs with different core diameters.For the small-core PCF,there are two peaks in BGS,but there is only one peak for the large-core PCF.We also reveal that in the small-core PCF,the difference of Brillouin frequency shift between the LP01 and LP11 modes is obvious,while it is not obvious in the large-core PCF.The Brillouin threshold increases with the core diameter increasing.     

Broadly tunable multiwavelength fiber laser with bismuth-oxide EDF using large effective area fiber

A multiwavelength laser comb using 2.49 m Bismuth-oxide erbium-doped fiber (Bi-EDF) with different lengths of large effective area fiber (LEAF) in a ring cavity configuration is realized. The Bi-EDF is used as the linear gain medium and LEAF is used as the non-linear gain medium for stimulated Brillouin scattering. Out of the four different lengths, the longest length of 25 km LEAF exhibits the widest tuning range of 44 nm (1576 to 1620 nm) in the L-band at 264 mW pump power and 5 mW Brillouin pump power. In addition, a total of 15 output channels are achieved with total average output power of −8 dBm from this laser structure. All Brillouin Stokes signals exhibit high peak power of above −20 dBm per signal and their optical signal-to-noise ratio of greater than 15 dB.     

Self-seeded multiwavelength Brillouin-erbium fiber laser

We propose and demonstrate a self-seeded multiwavelength Brillouin-erbium fiber laser with an internally self-excited Brillouin pump, which is achieved by incorporation of a length of single-mode fiber together with a Sagnac loop mirror into a fiber ring cavity. In this simple scheme the Brillouin pump is self-excited in the fiber ring cavity and then used to seed the Brillouin multiwavelength comb in the single-mode fiber. Stable generation of more than 120 Brillouin Stokes wavelengths with relatively uniform amplitudes is demonstrated with this scheme. It is also shown that such a self-seeded Brillouin laser has good stability and repeatability.     

20 W all fiber supercontinuum generation from picosecond MOPA pumped photonic crystal fiber

An all fiber high power supercontinuum (SC) source is demonstrated by pumping a section of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with a picosecond MOPA laser. The core of the PCF is enlarged at the input end through a serious of PCF post processing method to match the output fiber of the picosecond laser, to ensure low loss splicing, hence high power operation of the whole system. The supercontinuum output spectrum covers the wavelength range from 650 nm to beyond 1700 nm. Limited by available pump power, 20 W super-continuum output power is obtained under 29.5 W picosecond pump power, giving a high optical to optical conversion efficiency of 67.8%.     

Brillouin amplification and lasing in a single-mode As2Se3 chalcogenide fiber

Brillouin amplification and lasing are demonstrated in a single-mode As2Se3 chalcogenide fiber. A Brillouin gain of 42 dB was measured in a 4.9 m long fiber for a pump power of 68 mW at a 1.56 mum wavelength. In addition, a compact As2Se3 fiber-based Brillouin laser with a threshold power of 35 mW and a slope efficiency of 38% for nonresonant pumping is demonstrated.     

Simulation of Brillouin gain properties in a double-clad As_2Se_3 chalcogenide photonic crystal fiber

The Brillouin gain properties in a double-clad As_2Se_3 photonic crystal fiber(PCF)are simulated based on the finite-element method(FEM).The results indicate that the Brillouin gain spectrum(BGS)of our proposed chalcogenide PCF exhibits a multipeaked behavior and has a high Brillouin gain coefficient.We also find that a larger size of inner cladding air holes will lead to a more pronounced second peak in the BGS.On the other hand,the size of the outer cladding has nearly no effect on the BGS behavior.Through these results,one can tailor the Stimulated Brillouin scattering effect in PCFs for a wide range of applications.     

Power dependence of Brillouin linewidths in a silica fiber

We report the dependence of Brillouin linewidths on the pump power below the threshold of Brillouin lasing in a silica fiber. The Stokes Brillouin shift in a silica fiber is nearly unchanged, and its linewidth decreases with increasing pump power. However, the anti-Stokes Brillouin shift becomes smaller and its linewidth larger with increasing pump power. We explain these experimental results by the distributed fluctuating source model.     

占空比对光子晶体光纤激光器性能的影响

 在传统光纤激光器工作原理的基础上,考虑光子晶体光纤(PCF)模场分布特征,给出了连续泵浦情况下单模PCF激光器的速率方程和功率传输方程。利用该方程对掺镱单模PCF激光器的性能进行了数值模拟研究。结果表明：虽然空气占空比大小对PCF激光器的输出功率、泵浦阈值和斜率效率等影响不显著,但对拉曼非线性阈值影响却很大。当泵浦功率小于拉曼非线性阈值时,激光器主要输出信号激光;当超过拉曼阈值且在较宽的范围内,激光器同时输出功率相近的信号激光和拉曼光。基于这种效应,提出一种由泵浦功率控制的双波长光纤激光器的新思路。考虑到PCF非线性系数的可调控特性,采用不同光纤有可能在较宽的功率范围获得双波长激光振荡。     

高非线性微结构光纤中基于受激布里渊散射的慢光延迟

全光连续可调的慢光技术在全光网络和光信息处理等领域具有重要的应用前景. 利用自行设计并拉制的高非线性微结构光纤, 实验研究了基于受激布里渊散射的可调谐慢光延迟. 采用单抽运光和单级延迟方案, 当抽运光功率为162.6 mW时, 在长度为120 m的高非线性微结构光纤中获得了最大76 ns的延迟量, 相当于0.76个脉冲宽度. 通过调节抽运光功率的大小, 可以实现对慢光延迟量的可调谐.该慢光延迟方案具有延迟量大、 全光可调谐及与现有光通信系统兼容等优势. 关键词： 慢光 微结构光纤 受激布里渊散射     

Effect of Brillouin slow light on distributed Brillouin fiber sensors

The effect of Brillouin slow light on distributed Brillouin fiber sensors (DBFSs) is studied. We demonstrate Brillouin slow light for a 1.2 ns pulse with peak powers (PS) from 3.3 to 56.2 mW on depletion of the pump power (PP) ranging from 1.3 to 83.2 mW in conventional optical fibers (SMF-28). Experiments show that, when pump power depletion is not negligible, for a given PP the Brillouin gain and delay time of a pulse decrease when PS increases in a long (> or =10 km) sensing fiber. The optimum pump beam depletion resulting from strong interaction of the pump and the probe in the fiber provides accurate temperature and strain information at a high spatial resolution. Our study reveals that at low PP the spatial resolution error caused by the pulse delay for a DBFS with centimeter spatial resolution is less than 5% of the pulse length.     

Threshold reduction of stimulated Brillouin scattering in photonic crystal fiber

A simple configuration for the reduction of stimulated Brillouin scattering threshold in photonic crystal fiber is presented. The threshold reduction is contributed by the bidirectional pumping scheme through the reflection of transmitted Brillouin pump back to the gain medium. The pump recycling scheme has greatly reduced the Brillouin threshold of a 200-m long of photonic crystal fiber from 50 to 30 mW of Brillouin pump power.