Compact and robust laser system for rubidium laser cooling based on the frequency doubling of a fiber bench at 1560 nm

We propose a new compact and reliable laser system for rubidium laser cooling in onboard experiments like atomic clocks or atomic inertial sensors. The system is based on the frequency doubling of a telecom fiber bench at 1560 nm. Fiber components at 1560 nm allow us to generate the repumping laser and to control dynamically the power and the frequency of the 780 nm laser. With this laser system, we obtain a magneto-optical trap of ⁸⁵Rb even in the presence of mechanical vibrations and strong thermal variations (12 °C in 30 min). PACS 32.80.Pj; 42.60.-v; 42.81.Wg; 42.65.Ky; 39.20.+q     

Stable SOA-based multi-wavelength fiber ring laser using Sagnac loop mirror incorporating a high-birefringence photonic crystal fiber

Multi-wavelength fiber laser using semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) and Sagnac loop mirror (SLM) incorporating a newly designed high-birefringence photonic crystal fiber (HB-PCF) is experimentally demonstrated. The modal birefringence of the fabricated HB-PCF is estimated to be 1.1 × 10⁻³. Mainly, by adjusting a polarization controller in the fiber ring laser, the proposed fiber laser can operate at six lasing wavelengths with 2.7 nm intervals, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of around 30 dB. The output power stability is 0.8 dB. In addition, we obtained near-perfect temperature independence in our multi-wavelength fiber laser system. The temperature dependence of the SLM is around 3 pm/°C.     

Multiplexing fiber bragg grating sensors

Abstract

Bragg reflection gratings and out-coupling taps for sensors can be written holographically within the core of many commercial fibers available today. The gratings appear to be permanent and have been tested to temperatures in excess of 500°C. Quasi-distributed temperature, strain, pressure, chemical, and interferometric sensors can be made with the wavelength selective, reflection gratings, and taps. The fiber gratings, and the different types of sensors they can make, conveniently lend themselves to (wavelength-division multiplexing) WDM, (time-division multiplexing) TDM, and (frequency-division multiplexing) FDM types of multiplexing schemes. Instrumentation to detect the multiple sensors and measure their spectral shift for localized and quasi-distributed sensing is currently under development.     

Simultaneous measurement of temperature and strain using a long-period fiber grating with a micro-taper

An all-fiber Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) consisting of a long-period fiber grating with a micro-taper is proposed for simultaneous measurement of temperature and strain. The experimental results demonstrate that the temperature and strain sensitivities of the proposed MZI are 83 pm/°C and ?2.6 pm/με, respectively. The strain sensitivity is 20 times as high as that of a long-period fiber written by CO₂ laser pulses combined with a fiber bitaper. In addition, the interferometer requires only a common single-mode fiber, and it is easy to fabricate and is inexpensive for temperature and strain sensing applications.     

Erbium-doped fiber ring laser sensor for high temperature measurements based on a regenerated fiber Bragg grating

This article presents an erbium-doped fiber ring laser for high temperature measurement with high accuracy. The proposed laser sensor employs a regenerated fiber Bragg grating (RFBG) as a sensor element. Through thermal treatments, the RFBG with enhanced thermal resistance was obtained. The laser emission optical spectrum presents good performance with a high optical signal-to-noise ratio of 58dB. Experimental results demonstrate a wavelength sensitivity to the temperature is 15.5 pm/ºC with the temperature range from 300ºC to 900ºC, and the correlation coefficient is 0.999. The results prove it is able to provide potential applications in high temperature measurement.     

Optical fiber sensor for temperature measurement based on Silicon thermo-optics effect

A temperature sensor based on the thermo-optics effect of single crystal silicon diaphragm was proposed and studied. The temperature measurement mechanism by using single crystal silicon diaphragm was theoretically analyzed and found the relation between temperature measurement range and the thickness of single crystal diaphragm. It was found that when the temperature changed from 20 °C to 48 °C, the reflected resonant peak wavelength was shifted which was detected by using the dual-wavelength signal demodulation method. Experimental results for temperature measurement demonstrated reasonable linearity and repeatability, related linear regression coefficient of the experimental result is 99.94%. The study would be of utility value for the design and fabrication of silicon-based sensors which were used to measure pressure or the other physical quantities.     

Cw laser generation on Tl II in a hollow-cathode Ne-Tl discharge

Intense cw laser generation in a Ne-Tl hollow-cathode discharge on Tl II 594.9 nm line is obtained for the first time. line is obtained for the first time. Maximum laser power is obtained at 14 Torr neon pressure and Tl vapor temperature from 610°C to 700°C. The dependence of the output laser power on buffer gas pressure, discharge current and temperature is investigated.     

Acoustic thermometric reconstruction of a time-varying temperature profile

The time-varying temperature profiles were reconstructed in an experiment using a thermal acoustic radiation receiving array containing 14 sensors. The temperature was recovered by performing similar experiments using plasticine, as well as in vivo with a human hand. Plasticine preliminarily heated up to 36.5°C and a human hand were placed into water for 50 s at a temperature of 20°C. The core temperature of the plasticine was independently measured using thermocouples. The spatial resolution of the reconstruction in the lateral direction was determined by the distance between neighboring sensors and was equal to10 mm; the averaging time was 10 s. The error in reconstructing the core temperature determined in the experiment with plasticine was 0.5 K. The core temperature of the hand changed with time (in 50 s it decreased from 35 to 34°C) and space (the mean square deviation was 1.5 K). The experiment with the hand revealed that multichannel detection of thermal acoustic radiation using a compact 45 × 36 mm array to reconstruct the temperature profile could be performed during medical procedures.     

Torsion sensing with a fiber ring laser incorporating a pair of rotary long-period fiber gratings

We experimentally demonstrate a fiber ring laser for high-resolution torsion measurement, where the laser cavity consists of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer formed with a pair of long-period fiber gratings written in a twisted single-mode fiber by a CO₂ laser. The emitting wavelength of the laser provides a measure of the rate of the torsion applied to the grating pair, while the direction of the wavelength shift indicates the sense of the applied torsion. The narrow linewidth and the large side-mode suppression ratio of the laser can provide a much more precise measurement of torsion, compared with passive fiber-optic torsion sensors. The torsion sensitivity achieved is 0.084 nm/(rad/m) in the torsion range ± 100 rad/m, which corresponds to a torsion resolution of 0.12 rad/m, assuming a wavelength resolution of 10 pm for a typical optical spectrum analyzer. The ultimate resolution of the sensor is limited by the linewidth of the laser and could be an order of magnitude higher.     

Axial strain and temperature sensing characteristics of the single–coreless–single mode fiber structure-based fiber ring laser

This paper experimentally demonstrated a singlemode–coreless–singlemode (SCS) fiber structure-based fiber ring cavity laser for strain and temperature measurement. The basis of the sensing system is the multimodal interference occurs in coreless fiber, and the transmission spectrum is sensitive to the ambient perturbation. In this sensing system, the SCS fiber structure not only acts as the sensing head of the sensor but also the band-pass filter of the ring laser. Blue shift with strain sensitivity of \(\sim\) ?2 pm/με ranging from 0 to 730 με and red shift with temperature sensitivity of \(\sim\) 11 pm/°C ranging from 5 to 75 °C have been achieved. Experimental results also show the proposal has great potential in using long-distance operation. The fiber ring laser sensing system has a optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) more than 50 and 3 dB bandwidth less than 0.05 nm. The result shows that the coreless fiber has no improvement of the temperature and axial strain sensitivity. However, compared to the common singlemode–multimode–singlemode fiber structure sensors, the laser sensing system has the additional advantages of high OSNR, high intensity and narrow 3 dB bandwidth, and thus improves the accuracy.     

High-stable,double-pass forward superfluorescent fiber source based on erbium-doped photonic crystal fiber

A double-pass forward configuration superfluorescent fiber source (SFS) based on erbium-doped photonic crystal fiber (EDPCF) with a high intrinsic mean wavelength stability is presented. The main factors of SFS instability with temperature variation are analyzed. Optimization of the high-stable SFS is achieved by combining high-performance EDPCF, optimal fiber length, and source structure with fine-tuning pump power. The temperature dependence of the SFS mean wavelength has been reduced to below 0.077 ppm/°C with temperature variation from 70 to ?40 °C. To the best of our knowledge, this value is the closest to 0 ppm/°C in the reported references, and these new developments probably constitute an important step for high-accuracy interferometric fiber-optic gyroscope sources.     

Numerical analysis of a temperature sensor based on the photonic band gap effect in a photonic crystal fiber

In this paper we investigate, by the plane wave expansion method and an analytical model, the temperature effect on the photonic band gap fiber, and we report on a numerical demonstration of a temperature sensor based on the photonic band gap (PBG) shift in a solid core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) infiltrated with a high refractive index oil. The bandwidth and the position of the central wavelength of the band gap are the parameters of interests for our temperature sensing purpose. Simulation results were found to be in excellent agreement with the refractive index scaling law and the highest sensitivity of 3.21?nm/°C was achieved, and it will be even higher than the grating based sensors written in PCFs with similar structure.     

Injection laser sources for fiber optic communications

Abstract

This paper describes some of the laser designs and GaAs and GaAlAs epitaxial and wafer-processing technology currently used in the fabrication of laser diodes intended for incorporation into fiber optic communication or data link systems. Two classes of laser diodes are described: cw laser diodes emitting up to 75 mW and devices emitting in excess of 200 mW peak pulsed power at 27°C at duty cycles up to 10%. The fabrication and assembly of these devices is presented in detail, and the problems encountered in the transfer of these processes from a research environment to a manufacturing operation are discussed. Data are presented showing laser-emitted power, both pulsed and continuous, the angular distribution of emitted power, emission wavelength and bandwidth, optical coupling efficiency to various fibers, and laser lifetimes. In addition, the interaction between laser threshold current density, thermal impedance, emitted beam distribution, and fiber optic coupling is described. Several fiber optic laser coupling schemes are described. Finally, the results of testing pulsed laser diodes to see if they meet military environmental and performance test requirements are described with specific data presented showing the value of burn-in testing to eliminate lasers that exhibit abnormally short lifetimes from test lots.     

Temperature sensor based on etched optical fiber with a metal coating

Presented in this work is a new class of optical fiber temperature sensor, of which the heat-expansion thin film is coated on the etched fiber. It uses the method that combine thermal carving technique with chemical etching. The sensitivity of the sensor is increased and the shape size is decreased. This sensor possesses the linear temperature response and the good repeatability. These sensors can be used to measure finely the temperature which is lower than 200°c.     

New plastic optical fiber using polycarbonate core and fluorescence-doped fiber for high temperature use

This article describes the development of a plastic optical fiber composed of a polycarbonate core with a glass transition temperature of 150°C, and a cladding of newly developed poly-4-methyl penten-1, which softens at 173°C. This cladding is suitable for use at temperatures up to 130°C. The minimum optical attenuation is 0.8 dB/m at 765 nm in the near-infrared region. The cause of the attenuation of the PC-core fiber was analyzed and the intrinsic loss limit was estimated to be 0.4 dB/m at 765 nm. The fiber has excellent characteristics, including thermal stability up to 125°C, high flexibility, high strength, and self-extinguishing properties.

The polycarbonate core fiber, doped organic fluorescing materials, has also been developed for automotive uses such as light guide and illuminator. Light can be transmitted through this fiber with incident optical beam perpendicular to the fiber as well as the beam parallel to the fiber.     

XRD study on the effect of the deposition condition on pulsed laser deposition of ZnO films

Using a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) process on a ZnO target in an oxygen atmosphere, thin films of this material have been deposited on Si(111) substrates. An Nd: YAG pulsed laser with a wavelength of 1064 nm was used as the laser source. The influences of the deposition temperature, laser energy, annealing temperature and focus lens position on the crystallinity of ZnO films were analyzed by X-ray diffraction. The results show that the ZnO thin films obtained at the deposition temperature of 400°C and the laser energy of 250 mJ have the best crystalline quality in our experimental conditions. The ZnO thin films fabricated at substrate temperature 400°C were annealed at the temperatures from 400°C to 800°C in an atmosphere of N₂. The results show that crystalline quality has been improved by annealing, the optimum temperature being 600°C. The position of the focusing lens has a strong influence on pulsed laser deposition of the ZnO thin films and the optimum position is 59.5 cm from the target surface for optics with a focal length of 70 cm.      

Laser diode integrated with a low radiation loss thickness-tapered beam expander for highly efficient fiber coupling

The optimal structure of a laser diode monolithically integrated with a thickness-tapered beam expander waveguide is demonstrated by analyzing the relationship between fiber coupling efficiencies and radiation losses. It is also found that mode conversion loss is lowered in a ridge waveguide structure than in a buried hetero structure under equivalent fiber coupling. A fabricated ridge waveguide device based on this design shows threshold current as low as 16 mA and narrow beam divergences of 13° and 12°.     

In-band pumped Ho:YAP laser by Tm-Doped fiber laser at 1936 and 1948 nm,respectively

We present for the first time a highly efficient Ho:YAP laser at 2117.9 nm, which is double-end inband pumped by two all-fiber Tm-doped fiber lasers at 1936 and 1948 nm. Using a single 50 mm long Ho:YAP rod in a simple L-shaped resonator geometry, a maximum laser output power of 10.1 W and a slope efficiency of 43.6% with respect to the incident pump power are acquired. The Ho:YAP crystals work under room temperature 24°C, and without any active thermal management. This experimental results verify the Ho:YAP crystals can be pumped by the versatile laser sources in the 1.9 μm regions.     

Transmission characteristics of Mach–Zehnder interferometer comb filter based on thermal operation

We propose and experimentally demonstrate switchable and tunable transmission characteristics of a Mach–Zehnder interferometer comb filter based on thermal operation. Its temperature characteristics are investigated to reveal a shift in the peak wavelength position from 0.003 to 0.004 nm/°C and a tunable range of wavelength spacing of 0.76–0.90 nm for maximum and minimum effective lengths, respectively. This configuration provides the unique advantages of an all-fiber structure, tunable wavelength spacing, switchable spectral peaks, independent tuning of the center wavelength and wavelength spacing of the spectral peaks, and low polarization sensitivity. It is relatively simple to fabricate and expected to have applications in temperature fiber optic sensors and multiwavelength fiber laser sources.