Resonating properties of passive spherical optical microcavities

As an optically pumped device, the lasing characteristics of a spherical microcavity laser depend on the optical pumping processes. These characteristics can be described in term of the Q factor and the optical field distribution in a microsphere. We derived analytical expressions and carried out numerical calculation for Q factor and optical field. The Q factor is found to be oscillatory functions of the radius of a microsphere and the pumping wavelength, and the pumping efficiency for a resonating microsphere is much higher than that for an anti-resonating microsphere. Using tunable lasers as pumping sources is suggested in order to achieve a higher pumping efficiency. Numerical calculation on optical field distribution in spherical microcavities shows that a well focused Gaussian beam is a suitable incident wave for cavity quantum electrodynamics experiments in which strong confinement of optical field in the center of a microsphere is requested, but higher order spherical wave should be used instead     

Linearity of quadrant avalanche photodiode in laser tracking system

The tracking precision of laser tracking system is affected by the angular resolution of quadrant avalanche photodiode. According to the detecting principle of quadrant avalanche photodiode, the light spot area, the optical intensity distribution, the non-uniformity of response, and the signal-to-noise ratio （SNR） that affect the linearity of the detector are studied. The light optical spot area and the optical intensity distribution can be adjusted through software. The non-uniformity of response and the SNR are influenced by the noise of the detector. Because the noise is affected by the optical intensity of the incident laser, it is difficult to obtain the law of the linearity caused by noise. When the light spot area and the optical intensity distribution are fixed, the other factors can be measured. With the detector scanned in raster scanning mode, the non-uniformity of response is measured at different SNRs. The linearity of detector is measured by a moving target that can reflect the illuminating laser to the detector in diffuse reflection mode. The nonlinear error of the linearity of detector can be minimized by increasing the SNR.     

Spectral Optical Coherence Tomography Using Two-Phase Shifting Method

A two-phase shifting method is introduced to eliminate the strong autocorrelation noise inherent in spectral optical coherence tomography and to mitigate the unwanted auto- and cross-coherent terms introduced by the reflections from various optical interfaces present in the system. Fhrthermore, this method is also able to amplify the desired signal by a factor of 2. The feasibility of such a method is demonstrated using a mirror-like object. An intact porcine cornea tissue in vitro is also used to show the potential of this method for biological imaging.     

A Controlled Phase Gate with Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers in Nanocrystal Coupled to a Silica Microsphere Cavity

We show how a controlled phase gate, induced by adiabatic passage of dark states, can be implemented with the nitrogen-vacancy defects in nanocrystal coupled to the optical whispering gallery mode in a silica microsphere cavity. The gate presented is robust to the fluctuations of the experimental parameters compared to the dynamical and geometric phases gates. The feasibility of this scheme is characterized by exact numerical simulations that incorporate various sources of experiment noise. The results demonstrate the practicality by way of current experimental technologies.     

Ramsey-coherent population trapping Cs atomic clock based on lin‖lin optical pumping with dispersion detection

A Cs vapor cell-based atomic clock that uses a lin‖lin pumping scheme with dispersion detection is reported. This atomic clock shows potential for high performance because of its high contrast pumping scheme, and for miniaturization because of its simple architecture. The experimental setup and optimal operating parameters for the clock are introduced.The current fractional frequency stability is measured to be 1.3 × 10~(-12)/■ up to 20s and reaches 3.1 × 10~(-13) at 200 s. We have thoroughly investigated the related noise sources that affect clock frequency stability at the 1s and 100s levels. The investigation shows that the laser frequency noise limits the clock frequency stability significantly. The clock performance can be further improved by technically upgrading the laser frequency stabilization setup.     

Lower Hearing Threshold by Noise

We demonstrate that noise can be a benefit factor that enables us to hear weaker signals. We measured the hearing thresholds of subjects for pure tone in different noise levels. The results show that pure tone thresholds with noise of some levels are lower than that without noise. The largest down-shift of the threshold by noise among the examined subjects is 5.7 dB, and the smallest is 1.7 dB.     

Influence of degenerate four-wave mixing on the performance of supercontinuum-based multiwavelength optical source

The influence of degenerate four-wave mixing (FWM) on the performance of supercontinuum-based multiwavelength optical source has been investigated in detail experimentally and theoretically. Numerical simulation results show that the degenerate FWM effect has a deteriorative influence on the spectral uniformity and the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) of supercontinuum-based optical source, and by suppressing degenerate FWM effect the performance enhancement of the supercontinuum can be achieved successfully. These results are also confirmed by our experiments. Experimentally, by suppressing degenerate FWM the crosstalk of adjacent channels to the filtered channel can be reduced by as much as 15 dB, and consequently the measured receiver sensitivity at 10 Gbit/s for the filtered optical source is improved from $-1.7$ to $-17.8$~dBm.     

Time delay in InGaN multiple quantum well laser diodes at room temperature

This paper reports that a long delay between the beginning of pumping current pulse and the onset of optical pulse is observed in InGaN laser diodes.The delay time decreases as the pumping current increases,and the speed of the delay time reduction becomes slower as the current amplitude increases further.Such delay phenomena are remarkably less serious in laser diodes grown on GaN substrate than those on sapphire.It attributes the delay to the traps which cause a large optical loss by saturable absorption and retard the laser action.The traps can be bleached by capturing injected carriers.The effect of GaAs laser irradiation on InGaN laser action demonstrates that the traps responsible for the delay are deep centres which can be filled by the photo-assisted processes.     

State Preparation in a Cold Atom Clock by Optical Pumping

We implement optical pumping to prepare cold atoms in our prototype of the ~(87)Rb space cold atom clock, which operates in the one-way mode. Several modifications are made on our previous physical and optical system. The effective atomic signal in the top detection zone is increased to 2.5 times with 87% pumping efficiency. The temperature of the cold atom cloud is increased by 1.4 μK. We study the dependences of the effective signal gain and pumping efficiency on the pumping laser intensity and detuning. The effects of σ,transition are discussed.This technique may be used in the future space cold atom clocks.     

Tolerance on tilt error for coherent combining of fiber lasers

Limited by the precision of optical machining and assembling, the optical axes of lasers in an array cannot be strictly parallel to each other, which will result in the beam quality degradation of the combined beam. The tolerance on tilt error for coherent combining of fiber lasers is studied in detail. The complex amplitude distribution in the far field for the Gaussian beam with tilt angle is obtained by a novel coordinate transform method. Effect of tilt error on coherent combining is modelled analytically. Beam propagation factor is used to evaluate the effect of coherent combining. Numerical results show that for ring-distributed fiber laser array with central wavelength A and geometry size D, if the root-mean-square （RMS） value of the tilt error is smaller than 0.72A/D, the energy encircled in the diffraction-limited bucket can be ensured to be more than 50% of the value when there is no tilt error. The results are helpful to the designing and manufacturing of fiber array for coherent combining.     

光纤拉曼放大器中双重瑞利背向散射噪声的抑制

研究了光纤拉曼放大器中双重瑞利散射噪声的特性，提出了在考虑拉曼光放大作用时，双重量早散射噪声的表达式。给出了在加入隔离器进入抑制后，双重量早散射噪声的计算方法，并进行了模拟分析，得出了旋转隔离器的最佳位置。     

分布式光纤拉曼放大器在长距离光传输系统中的优化设计

同时考虑接收光信噪比(OSNR)及非线性失真影响，对分布式光纤拉曼放大器在长距离光传输系统中的最优抽运方式进行了研究.利用变分法原理获得了在不记双瑞利背散射(DRB)影响时的最优信号功率分布函数——均匀分布，但考虑双瑞利散射影响时则不存在解析的最优分布函数.在分别考虑长、短光纤跨距的情况下，比较了三种具有代表性的分布式光纤拉曼放大方式，即双向二阶拉曼抽运、双向一阶拉曼抽运和拉曼+掺铒光纤放大器混合放大方式的性能.指出通过优化一阶抽运波长以及一阶到二阶抽运功率比，对称结构的双向二阶抽运在绝大部分情况下可以在 关键词： 光纤拉曼放大器 双瑞利背散射 变分法 光纤非线性     

铋基掺铒光纤放大器中放大自发辐射处理研究

分别设计了一个带光隔离器和一个带光环形器的复合型宽带铋基掺铒光纤放大器(Bi-EDFA),理论上研究了Bi-EDFA中对于后向传输放大自发辐射(ASE)的处理对放大器性能的影响。研究表明,在C+L波段多波长信号同时输入情形下,通过在铋基掺铒光纤中插入一个光隔离器抑制后向传输的ASE,可以提高放大器各波长信号增益,降低噪声系数。利用一个光环形器引导后向传输的ASE去泵浦一段未抽运的低掺杂铋基掺铒光纤,可以显著地提高放大器长波段信号增益,而噪声系数只是略有增加,理论研究与报道的实验结果达到了比较好的一致。研究结果对于新型宽带Bi-EDFA的设计和应用具有一定实际指导意义。     

Resolution enhancement in noise spectrum by using velocity selective optical pumping in cesium vapor

We demonstrate experimentally that the resolution of amplitude noise spectrum in Cs atomic vapor can be enhanced by narrowing the absorption using velocity selective optical pumping technique. It is found that the steep atomic dispersion accompanied by high absorption leads to more conversion of laser phase noise to amplitude noise, when the field propagates throughout the atoms, and meanwhile the spectral resolution is improved. The effect of optical pumping intensity on the spectrum resolution is experimentally discussed, and a theoretical explanation for this phenomenon is given, which shows that the phase-to-amplitude noise conversion is directly proportional to the dispersion of medium.     

高信噪比多波长2 μm主动锁模光纤激光器

介绍一种多波长掺铥主动锁模光纤激光器,增益介质为长2 m的掺铥光纤,主动锁模通过铌酸锂强度调制器实现。腔内加入基于双折射的光学滤波器,利用保偏光纤双折射滤波效应在滤除腔内多余超模噪声的同时,还可以实现多波长输出。基频下的锁模脉冲频谱信噪比可达68.48 dB,在稳定的锁模状态下波长信道数最大为5。此外,腔内偏振无关隔离器被替换为偏振相关隔离器后,将锁模脉冲加载数字信号同步调制,测得的眼图光信噪比提高了8.67 dB。测试结果表明,锁模脉冲的时间稳定性得到有效提升。     

Femtosecond ring all-fiber Yb laser with combined wavelength-division multiplexer-isolator

An original scheme of an all-fiber all-normal-dispersion ring mode-locked Yb laser is proposed and experimentally studied. A single fiber element serves as a wavelength-division multiplexer for the pumping radiation, an optical isolator, and a spectrally selective element for the radiation of the Yb laser. The output pulse duration is 900 fs, and the intracavity compression yields the pulses with a duration of 200 fs. The maximum laser power is 35 mW at a wavelength of 1070 nm.     

双向抽运拉曼光纤放大器性能的研究

对双向抽运拉曼光纤放大器(RFA)的噪声特性、增益饱和及抽运功率转换效率进行了详细研究。结果表明,双向抽运拉曼光纤放大器的噪声特性介于前向抽运与后向抽运之间,但主要取决于前向抽运方式所导致的噪声特性;双向抽运方式的饱和功率低于单向抽运方式的饱和功率,同前向抽运与后向抽运提供的增益比例有关;双向抽运方式的抽运功率转换效率同信号光功率及前、后向抽运提供的增益有关,当信号光功率较低时,增加前向抽运的比例可取得较高的抽运功率转换效率,而信号光功率较高时,增加后向抽运的比例可取得较高的抽运功率转换效率。研究一种配置(情况3)的双向抽运拉曼光纤放大器,可以完全补偿100km传输线路的损耗(包括无源器件的损耗),最低光信噪比为30．21dB。     

多波长双向抽运光纤拉曼放大器的优化设计

通过合理分析提出了便于计算多波长双向抽运光纤拉曼放大器信号及噪声功率的实用数值模型,给出求解信号和噪声功率的快速算法。在定义抽运方向度为前向抽运功率与总抽运功率值的比值后,通过对计算结果的分析发现信道平均放大自发辐射噪声功率随着抽运方向度的提高而单调递减;而信道平均双重瑞利散射噪声功率相对抽运方向度的变化曲线始终成U字形。不同的增益下存在对应的最优抽运方向度,在此抽运方向度下放大器总噪声最低。进而考虑在信号非线性失真的条件下提出了抽运方向度优化的衡量指标。优化后的多波长双向抽运方式不仅能保证对所有信道的平坦放大,而且其综合性能明显高于后向抽运方式。     

Asymmetric multimode interference isolator based on nonreciprocal phase shift

This paper presents an asymmetric multimode interference-based (MMI) optical isolator, by utilizing the magneto-optical nonreciprocal phase shift (NPS). Equivalent beam propagation method (BPM) simulation of symmetric and asymmetric isolators are performed using configuration of Air/Ce:YIG/SiO₂ on silicon substrate for integration. The asymmetric isolator is found to be much more compact in size and efficient in isolation compared with symmetric isolator. Simulation results show that the isolation of asymmetric structure is 23.8 dB higher than that of symmetric one. It is mainly because both symmetric mode and anti-symmetric mode are excited in asymmetric structure and hence can interfere destructively. The proposed device may play an important role in the optical communication systems and photonic integrated devices.     

Frequency-dependent optical pumping in atomic ?-systems

We consider the effects of optical pumping on the conversion of laser-frequency modulation into intensity modulation by an atomic absorption line in a vapor of alkali atoms driven in a ?-configuration. It is found that, due to optical pumping in combination with the excited-state hyperfine structure, the absorption line shape is distorted substantially as the Fourier frequency of the FM is changed. The most significant effect of the distortion is a shift of the apparent line center, which depends on how the frequency of the modulation compares with the optical pumping rate. This shift has implications for locking lasers to atomic transitions and also for FM-AM noise conversion in atomic vapors.