Optical modes in a nonlinear double-channel waveguide

We analytically address different types of optical modes in a coupler composed by two nonlinear optical waveguides. It is shown that the coupler not only supports symmetry-preserving modes but also symmetry-breaking modes. In addition, the properties on the existence and bifurcation of those modes are analyzed in detail.     

Variable-coefficient higher-order nonlinear Schrödinger model in optical fibers: Variable-coefficient bilinear form,Bäcklund transformation,brightons and symbolic computation

Symbolically investigated in this Letter is a variable-coefficient higher-order nonlinear Schrödinger (vcHNLS) model for ultrafast signal-routing, fiber laser systems and optical communication systems with distributed dispersion and nonlinearity management. Of physical and optical interests, with bilinear method extend, the vcHNLS model is transformed into a variable-coefficient bilinear form, and then an auto-Bäcklund transformation is constructed. Constraints on coefficient functions are analyzed. Potentially observable with future optical-fiber experiments, variable-coefficient brightons are illustrated. Relevant properties and features are discussed as well. Bäcklund transformation and other results of this Letter will be of certain value to the studies on inhomogeneous fiber media, core of dispersion-managed brightons, fiber amplifiers, laser systems and optical communication links with distributed dispersion and nonlinearity management.     

Spectral broadening of 40-fs Ti:sapphire laser pulses in photonic-molecule modes of a cobweb-microstructure fiber

Photonic-molecule modes of a cobweb-microstructure fiber allow efficient nonlinear optical spectral broadening of nanojoule femtosecond light pulses. Spectral widths of approximately 200 nm are achieved at the output of a 6-cm sample of such a fiber for 40-fs Ti:sapphire laser pulses with an energy of a few nanojoules coupled into photonic-molecule modes. Higher values of the group index and a lower group-velocity dispersion, attainable with higher-order photonic-molecule modes, allow the efficiency of spectral broadening of femtosecond laser pulses to be increased relative to the efficiency of spectral broadening in the fundamental photonic-molecule mode. Received: 9 June 2002 / Revised version: 29 June 2002 / Published online: 22 November 2002 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +7-095/939-3959, E-mail: zheltikov@top.phys.msu.su     

Metallic nonlinear magnetooptical nonreciprocal isolator

In advanced optical fiber communication systems where reflection light might cause degradation of the signal quality, optical waveguide isolators play an important role. The effect of a metal layer with negative permittivity on the behavior of nonlinear-magnetooptic isolator is studied. The isolator consists of metal film, nonlinear cladding, and magnetooptic substrate. It is found that difference between forward and backward propagation for TM₀ mode increases with increasing the absolute value of the tuning parameter which is the permittivity of the metal film, ?_f. It is also found that the maximum cut-off thickness of the isolator occurs in self-defocusing case around η = 0.65 and at the highest assumed value of ?_f = −8. These results are helpful in fabricating an isolator with high performance.     

Well-confined Yb:GdVO4 laser waveguide formed by MeV C ion implantation

The planar waveguide in x-cut Yb:GdVO₄ crystal has been fabricated by 6.0 MeV carbon ion implantation with the fluence of 1 × 10¹⁴ ions/cm² at room temperature. The modes of the waveguide were measured by the prism-coupling method with the wavelength of 633 nm and 1539 nm, respectively. An enhanced ordinary refractive index region was formed with a width of about 4.0 μm beneath the sample surface to act as a waveguide structure. By performing a modal analysis on the observed transverse magnetic polarized modes, it was found that all the transverse magnetic polarized modes can be well-confined inside the waveguide. Strong Yb-related photoluminescence in Yb:GdVO₄ waveguide has been observed at room temperature, which reveals that it exhibits possible applications for integrated active photonic devices.     

Two-octave spectral broadening of subnanojoule Cr:forsterite femtosecond laser pulses in tapered fibers

Spectral broadening of femtosecond Cr:forsterite laser pulses is enhanced due to the use of tapered fibers. Supercontinuum generation with unamplified subnanojoule femtosecond Cr:forsterite laser pulses is observed for the first time. With 40-fs 0.6-nJ pulses of 1.25-μm Cr:forsterite laser radiation coupled into a tapered fiber having a taper waist diameter of about 2 μm and a taper waist length of 90 mm, we observed the spectra spanning more than two octaves at the output of the fiber in the regime of anomalous group-velocity dispersion. This result opens the way for the creation of compact femtosecond Cr:forsterite laser plus tapered fiber systems for optical metrology and biomedical applications. Received: 23 October 2001 / Accepted: 16 January 2002 / Published online: 14 March 2002     

PPLN waveguide for quantum communication

We report on energy-time and time-bin entangled photon-pair sources based on a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide. Degenerate twin photons at 1 314 nm wavelength are created by spontaneous parametric down-conversion and coupled into standard telecom fibers. Our PPLN waveguide features a very high conversion efficiency of about 10^-6, roughly 4 orders of magnitude more than that obtained employing bulk crystals [#!Tanzilli01a!#]. Even if using low power laser diodes, this engenders a significant probability for creating two pairs at a time - an important advantage for some quantum communication protocols. We point out a simple means to characterize the pair creation probability in case of a pulsed pump. To investigate the quality of the entangled states, we perform photon-pair interference experiments, leading to visibilities of 97% for the case of energy-time entanglement and of 84% for the case of time-bin entanglement. Although the last figure must still be improved, these tests demonstrate the high potential of PPLN waveguide based sources to become a key element for future quantum communication schemes. Received 13 July 2001     

Photorefractive spatial solitons as waveguiding elements for optical telecommunication

Spatial solitons permit optical waveguiding. This holds true for the soliton write beam (i.e. the driving laser beam), as well as for additional probe beams, which may carry optically encoded information. This feature of spatial solitons is of significant interest for applications in optical telecommunication. We present systematic experimental investigations on single and multiple spatial solitons in the infrared spectral regime (i.e. around optical telecommunication wavelengths), applied as controllable all-optical devices. In particular, we present the implementations of a Y-coupler as an optical signal divider, a switchable Y-coupler as an optical add multiplexer, and a novel design for a 1 × 3 optical beam switch, i.e. applied as a router for infrared signal beams. We report large waveguiding efficiencies up to 40% and transmission rates of 90 Tbit/s in our setups. The presented experimental data are confirmed by numerical simulations.     

Turbo-switched Mach-Zehnder interferometer performance as all-optical signal processing element at 160 Gb/s

Two variations of the active Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) that incorporate the recently proposed turbo-switch effect are introduced to carry out three key functionalities in forthcoming high-speed optical telecommunication networks, namely, all-optical wavelength conversion, photonic XOR gating and optical time-division demultiplexing. Their performance is numerically investigated at 160 Gb/s using a sophisticated semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) model. The more practical of the two proposed geometries shows error-free operation as XOR Boolean gate, low patterning as wavelength converter, and poor performance as demultiplexer. For comparison, results derived from well-accepted (or typical) schemes are also presented, and the role of the required extra SOAs as distinguishing elements of the new architectures is investigated.     

Modal Characterization of a Planar Waveguide in Bismuth Borate Crystal

We report on the fabrication and modal property studies of planar waveguide structure in x-cut bismuth borate biaxial crystal formed by He ion implantation with triple energies. The prism coupling method is used to measure the effective refractive indices of this waveguide. We reconstruct the refractive index distribution of this waveguide by the reflectivity calculation method. Our results indicate that a broadened optical barrier is produced by the multiple He ion implantations. The so-called tunneling effect of the non-stationary mode in this type of barrier waveguide is presented by the well-known finite difference beam propagation method.