40-GHz wavelength tunable mode-locked SOA-based fiber laser with 40-nm tuning range

A 40-GHz wavelength tunable mode-locked fiber ring laser based on cross-gain modulation in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is presented. Pulse trains with a pulse width of 10.5 ps at 40-GHz repetition frequency are obtained. The laser operates with almost 40-nm tuning range. The relationship between the key laser parameters and the output pulse characteristics is analyzed experimentally.     

Repetition rate continuously tunable 10-GHz picosecond mode-locked fiber ring laser

A couple of simple-structure phase modulators were used in active mode-locked fiber laser to implement repetition rate continuous tuning. The laser produces pulse as short as 5.7 ps whose repetition rate tuning can cover the spacing of the adjoining order mode-locking frequencies.     

Generation of 10-GHz ultra-short pulses with low time jitter in an actively mode-locked fiber laser

We have experimentally achieved the 8.3-ps ultra-short pulse at 10 GHz repetition rate with the time jitter as low as 590 fs in an actively mode-locked fiber ring laser. The ring-cavity laser is mode-locked by a semiconductor optical amplifier based on cross-gain modulation. The external CW source is modulated with radio frequency signal by an amplitude modulator as the external optical pulses and, then, injected into the fiber ring cavity to achieve active mode locking. Further investigating the laser output characteristics, it indicates that the linewidth of employed CW source affects properties of the generated ultra-short pulse, such as phase noise and time jitter. Ultra-short pulse at high repetition rate with low time jitter can be generated by the optimization of CW laser source.     

SOA-based actively mode-locked fiber ring laser by forward injecting an external pulse train

An actively mode-locked fiber ring laser based on cross-gain modulation (XGM) in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is demonstrated to operate stably with a simple configuration. By forward injecting an easily-generated external pulse train, the mode-locked fiber laser can generate an optical-pulse sequence with pulsewidth about 6 ps and average output power about 7.9 mW. The output pulses show an ultra-low RMS jitter about 70.7 fs measured by a RF spectrum analyzer. The use of the proposed forward-injection configuration can realize the repetition-rate tunability from 1 to 15 GHz for the generated optical-pulse sequences. By employing a wavelength-tunable optical band-pass filter in the laser cavity, the operation wavelength of the designed SOA-based actively mode-locked fiber laser can be tuned continuously in a wide span between 1528 and 1565 nm. The parameters of external-injection optical pulses are studied experimentally to optimize the mode-locked fiber laser.     

20-GHz broadly tunable and stable mode-locked semiconductor amplifier fiber ring laser

We present an actively mode-locked fiber ring laser that uses a single active semiconductor optical amplifier device to provide both gain and gain modulation from an external optical pulse train. The laser source generated 4.3-ps pulses at 20 GHz over a 16-nm tuning range and is stable against environmental changes and simple to build.     

7-GHz high-repetition-rate mode-locked pulse generation using short-cavity phosphate glass fiber laser

A compact short-cavity high-repetition-frequency mode-locked fiber laser configured with Er³⁺/Yb³⁺ highly co-doped phosphate glass fiber and a graphene optical deposited film as saturable absorber is proposed and analyzed experimentally. The laser operates in stable mode-locked regime with fundamental repetition rate of 7.02 GHz. The output power is measured to be 1.2 mW with pump power around 80 mW, and the optical spectrum is centered about 1533.768 nm with mode spacing of 0.056 nm. As the pump power increases, the laser operates in multi-wavelength mode-locking emission state with the same longitude mode spacing. Moreover, the measure results show that different wavelength emission operates in different polarization states.     

A self-consistent model for a SOA-based fiber ring laser including the mode-locked pulse properties

In this paper, we present a self-consistent model of an optically mode-locked semiconductor fiber ring laser. The fiber laser uses a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) as the gain medium, while mode-locking is achieved by its gain modulation, via an external optical pulsed signal. We solved the model analytically developing a novel technique, where we have assumed double saturation of the SOA by both the mode-locked and the externally introduced pulsed signal. The study revealed the locus of the laser parameters to achieve mode-locking. In particular, it was found that SOA gain and energy of the externally introduced signal are two critical parameters that must simultaneously set properly for exact mode-locking. Another outcome of our analysis is that the study of the chirp parameter should be carried out keeping the nonlinear terms of the SOA gain. We have also investigated a slightly detuning regime of operation that revealed a fast change of the mode-locking process.     

Passively mode-locked fiber laser with kilohertz magnitude repetition rate and tunable pulse width

We propose and demonstrate a strictly all-fiber, erbium doped passively mode-locked figure-eight fiber laser (EDFL). In the laser structure, we use the nonlinear optical loop mirror combination with a variable ratio coupler (VRC-NOLM) to achieve mode-locking. Due to the nonlinear effect in the nonlinear fiber, stable self-starting pulse is obtained. In order to reduce the repetition of pulse, a segment of nonlinear fiber (NLF) has been incorporated into the VRC-NOLM. The laser generates stable rectangular pulses with a low repetition rate (kilohertz magnitude) by extending the length of the cavity. Furthermore, the output pulse width of the fiber laser can be varied by changing the coupler ratio of the variable ratio coupler.     

High repetition rate actively mode-locked Er:fiber laser with tunable pulse duration

An actively mode-locked fiber laser with controllable pulse repetition rate and tunable pulse duration is presented, in which an optical delay line(ODL) is used to adjust the cavity length precisely for regulating the repetition rate, and a semiconductor optical amplifier(SOA) is introduced for enabling the pulse duration control. Experimentally, continuous tuning of the repetition rate from 2 GHz to 6 GHz is realized, which is limited by the availability of an even higher repetition rate radiof...     

Multi-wavelength mode-locked Er/Yb Co-doped fiber laser with square nano-second pulse output

We report a multi-wavelength mode-locked Er/Yb codoped fiber laser with square nano-second pulse output, which is constructed with a “figure-of-eight” cavity structure. A section of polarization-maintaining Er/Yb co-doped double clad fiber was used as the gain medium and pumped by a fiber pigtailed multimode laser diode working at 975 nm via a multimode fiber combiner. Several megahertz repetition rate output pulses with peak power up to 9.2 W and pulse duration around several nanoseconds were obtained.     

2-GHz passive harmonically mode-locked Yb-doped double-clad fiber laser

We report passive harmonic mode locking of a high-power Yb-doped double-clad fiber laser. 680-fs, 48-pJ pulses are emitted at the repetition rate of 2.13 GHz, while the free spectral range of the cavity is 23.4 MHz. Results indicate a supermode suppression of more than 25 dB.     

Switchable and tunable dual-wavelength ultrashort pulse generation in a passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber ring laser

A simple switchable and tunable dual-wavelength passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber ring laser based on nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) effect is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The NPR effect effectively induces wavelength- and intensity-dependent loss to readily implement stable dual-wavelength passively mode-locked operation. The wavelength switching and tuning of the dual-wavelength ultrashort pulse laser are achieved only by appropriately rotating the polarization controllers. The side-mode suppression ratio of the output pulse is larger than 41 dB over a wavelength-tuning range of 43.4 nm. Moreover, triple-wavelength ultrashort pulse can also be observed.     

Generation and stabilization of ultrafast optical pulse trains with monolithic mode-locked laser diodes

In this paper, we report on the generation and the stabilization of ultrafast optical pulse trains exceeding 100 GHz from monolithic mode-locked laser diodes (MLLDs) combined with some new techniques such as subharmonic synchronous mode-locking (SSML) and repetition-frequency multiplication (RFM) method. Key subjects to increase the pulse repetition frequencies of the MLLDs such as fast absorption recovery and harmonic mode-locking operation are discussed. 500 GHz optical pulse generation from a short-cavity, graded-index separated confinement heterostructure MLLD and THz-rate pulse generation by harmonic mode-locking are reported. We also demonstrate the stabilization of a 160 GHz MLLD by the SSML with subharmonic-frequency optical pulse injection and reveal that the SSML is very promising as a stabilization technique of the ultrafast MLLD beyond the limitations by the electronic device speed. A method to accurately measure the timing jitter of such ultrafast optical pulse train, all-optical down converting using a nonlinear optical device, is also presented. We also mention another choice for ultrafast optical pulse generation using the MLLD combined with a dispersive medium such as an optical fiber. We demonstrate here the generations of stable 84–256 GHz optical pulse trains by the RFM method of the MLLD stabilized by the SSML.     

Characteristics of pulse evolution in mode-locked thulium-doped fiber laser

We have numerically investigated the characteristics of the pulse evolution in a passively mode-locked thulium-doped fiber laser with net anomalous cavity dispersion. For the fixed resonator configuration, single-, dual-, triple-, and quadruple-pulses are generated successively by enhancing the pump power or reducing the output ratio. The characteristics of the single or multiple pulses are investigated with various cavity lengths. The separation between the two coexisting pulses changes with the pump power due to the interaction between the soliton and the dispersive waves, and then the two randomly distributed pulses could finally evolve into a soliton pair with fixed separation. According to the results of the numerical simulation, the multiple pulses are found to be generated via pulse splitting and the pulse splitting threshold decreases with the increase of the cavity length.     

Ultralow-jitter passive timing stabilization of a mode-locked Er-doped fiber laser by injection of an optical pulse train

The pulse timing of a mode-locked Er-doped fiber laser was stabilized to a reference pulse train from a Cr:forsterite mode-locked laser by all-optical passive synchronization scheme. The reference pulses were injected into a ring cavity of the fiber laser by using a 1.3-1.5 mum wavelength-division multiplexer. The spectral shift induced by cross-phase modulation between copropagating two-color pulses realizes self-synchronization due to intracavity group-delay dispersion. The rms integration of timing jitter between the fiber laser pulse and the reference pulse was 3.7 fs in a Fourier frequency range from 1 Hz to 100 kHz.     

Widely tunable passively mode-locked fiber laser with carbon nanotube films

In this paper, we demonstrate a widely tunable passively mode-locked fiber laser covering the C or L band with carbon nanotube films. Our results show that the saturable absorber incorporating nanotubes (SAINT) has potential for constructing widely tunable passively mode-locked fiber laser.     

Generation of wideband tunable femtosecond laser based on nonlinear propagation of power-scaled mode-locked femtosecond laser pulses in photonic crystal fiber

We implement an experimental study for the generation of wideband tunable femtosecond laser with a home-made power-scaled mode-locked fiber oscillator as the pump source.By coupling the sub-100 fs mode-locked pulses into a nonlinear photonic crystal fiber(NL-PCF),the exited spectra have significant nonlinear broadening and cover a spectra range of hundreds of nm.In experiment,by reasonably optimizing the structure parameters of NL-PCF and regulating the power of the incident pulses,femtosecond laser with tuning range of 900-1290 nm is realized.The research approach promotes the development of femtosecond lasers with center wavelengths out of the traditional laser gain media toward the direction of simplicity and ease of implementation.     

High pulse energy mode-locked multicore photonic crystal fiber laser

A high pulse energy passively mode-locked fiber laser operating in the all-normal dispersion regime is demonstrated. The gain material is an Yb-doped multicore photonic crystal fiber with 18 cores in array-type geometry. Robust and self-starting mode locking is achieved using a fast semiconductor saturable absorber mirror. The laser generates 180?nJ chirped pulses at a 14.48?MHz repetition rate for an average power of 2.6?W. The 1.15?ps output pulses are compressed to 690?fs outside the cavity.     

Generation of optical waveforms in 1.3-μm SOA-based fiber lasers

Passive optical waveform generation is obtained in fiber lasers using a 1.3-μm semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) as the gain medium. Various waveforms, including square wave, staircase wave, triangular wave, pulse, and dark pulse are generated in SOA-based fiber lasers by adjusting intracavity polarization controllers. The passive waveform generation might be attributed to the SOA gain dynamics and the enhanced nonlinear interaction at the 1.3-μm zero dispersion wavelength of traditional single-mode fiber (SMF), as well as the interference effect between the two sub-cavities of fiber laser. With figure-8 cavity configuration, 1250th-order harmonic pulses have been successfully demonstrated. We have also obtained a free-running SOA-based fiber laser with 3-dB spectral width of 16 nm, and the center wavelength can be tuned over 45 nm range.     

Ultrastable cesium atomic clock with a 9.1926-GHz regeneratively mode-locked fiber laser

We describe an ultrastable cesium (Cs) atomic clock with a 9.1926-GHz regeneratively mode-locked fiber laser obtained by use of an optically pumped Cs beam tube. By adopting a 1-m-long Cs beam tube with a linewidth of 110 Hz, we have successfully obtained frequency stabilities of 4.8 x 10(-12) for tau = 1 s and 6.3 x 10(-13) for tau = 50 s for a 9.1926-GHz microwave output signal. This Cs atomic clock can generate an optical pulse train with the same stability as that of the obtained microwave, which allows us to deliver a frequency standard optical signal throughout the world by means of optical fiber networks.