Point-by-point inscription of sub-micrometer period fiber Bragg gratings

Point-by-point inscription of sub-µm period fiber Bragg gratings with good spectral quality, first order Bragg resonances within the C-band is achieved. Distinct polarization characteristics are further observed in these fiber gratings.

Nonlinear fibre-based photonic technologies

Editorial

Nonlinear pulse shaping in fibres for pulse generation and optical processing

The development of new all-optical technologies for data processing and signal manipulation is a field of growing importance with a strong potential for numerous applications in diverse areas of modern science. Nonlinear phenomena occurring in optical fibres have many attractive features and great, but not yet fully explored, potential in signal processing. Here, we review recent progress on the use of fibre nonlinearities for the generation and shaping of optical pulses and on the applications of advanced pulse shapes in all-optical signal processing. Amongst other topics, we will discuss ultrahigh repetition rate pulse sources, the generation of parabolic shaped pulses in active and passive fibres, the generation of pulses with triangular temporal profiles, and coherent supercontinuum sources. The signal processing applications will span optical regeneration, linear distortion compensation, optical decision at the receiver in optical communication systems, spectral and temporal signal doubling, and frequency conversion. © Copyright 2012 Sonia Boscolo and Christophe Finot.

Intermediate asymptotics in nonlinear optical systems

Using a fiber laser system as a specific illustrative example, we introduce the concept of intermediate asymptotic states in finite nonlinear optical systems. We show that intermediate asymptotics of nonlinear equations (e.g., coherent structures with a finite lifetime or distance) can be used in applications similar to those of truly stable asymptotic solutions, such as, e.g., solitons and dissipative nonlinear waves. Applying this general idea to a particular, albeit practically important, physical system, we demonstrate a novel type of nonlinear pulse-shaping regime in a mode-locked fiber laser leading to the generation of linearly chirped pulses with a triangular distribution of the intensity.

Effects of fourth-order fiber dispersion on ultrashort parabolic optical pulses in the normal dispersion regime

We propose a new method for the generation of both triangular-shaped optical pulses and flat-top, coherent supercontinuum spectra using the effect of fourth-order dispersion on parabolic pulses in a passive, normally dispersive highly nonlinear fiber. The pulse reshaping process is described qualitatively and is compared to numerical simulations.

Flat-top pulse generation based on a fiber Bragg grating in transmission

We propose and analyze a flat-top pulse generator based on a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) in transmission. As is shown in the examples, a uniform period FBG properly designed can exhibit a spectral response in transmission close to sinc function (in amplitude and phase) in a certain bandwidth, because of the logarithm Hilbert transform relations, which can be used to reshape a Gaussian-like input pulse into a flat-top pulse.

Design of an ultrafast all-optical differentiator based on a fiber Bragg grating in transmission

We propose and analyze a first-order optical differentiator based on a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) in transmission. It is shown in the examples that a simple uniform-period FBG in a very strong coupling regime (maximum reflectivity very close to 100%) can perform close to ideal temporal differentiation of the complex envelope of an arbitrary-input optical signal.

Ultrafast all-optical integrator based on a fiber Bragg grating:proposal and design

We demonstrate a simple technique for the implementation of an all-optical integrator based on a uniform-period fiber Bragg grating (FBG) in reflection that is designed to present a decreasing exponential impulse response. The proposed FBG integrator is readily feasible and can perform close to ideal integration of few-picosecond and subpicosecond pulses.

All-fiber passively mode-locked femtosecond laser using a 45º-tilted fiber grating polarization element

We report on the demonstration of an all-fiber femtosecond erbium doped fiber laser passively mode-locked using a 45º tilted fiber grating as an in-fiber polarizer in the laser cavity. The laser generates 600 fs pulses with output pulse energies ~1 nJ. Since the 45° tilted grating has a broad polarization response, the laser output has shown a tunabilty in wavelength from 1548 nm to 1562 nm by simply adjusting the polarization controllers in the cavity.

PMD tolerance of 288 Gbit/s Coherent WDM and transmission over unrepeatered 124 km of field-installed single mode optical fiber

Low-cost, high-capacity optical transmission systems are required for metropolitan area networks. Direct-detected multi-carrier systems are attractive candidates, but polarization mode dispersion (PMD) is one of the major impairments that limits their performance. In this paper, we report the first experimental analysis of the PMD tolerance of a 288Gbit/s NRZ-OOK Coherent Wavelength Division Multiplexing system. The results show that this impairment is determined primarily by the subcarrier baud rate. We confirm the robustness of the system to PMD by demonstrating error-free performance over an unrepeatered 124km field-installed single-mode fiber with a negligible penalty of 0.3dB compared to the back-to-back measurements. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America

Compensation of intra-channel nonlinear fibre impairments using simplified digital back-propagation algorithm

We investigate a digital back-propagation simplification method to enable computationally-efficient digital nonlinearity compensation for a coherently-detected 112 Gb/s polarization multiplexed quadrature phase shifted keying transmission over a 1,600 km link (20x80km) with no inline compensation. Through numerical simulation, we report up to 80% reduction in required back-propagation steps to perform nonlinear compensation, in comparison to the standard back-propagation algorithm. This method takes into account the correlation between adjacent symbols at a given instant using a weighted-average approach, and optimization of the position of nonlinear compensator stage to enable practical digital back-propagation.

Nonlinear penalties in long-haul optical networks employing dynamic transponders

We report for the first time, the impact of cross phase modulation in WDM optical transport networks employing dynamic 28 Gbaud PM-mQAM transponders (m = 4, 16, 64, 256). We demonstrate that if the order of QAM is adjusted to maximize the capacity of a given route, there may be a significant degradation in the transmission performance of existing traffic for a given dynamic network architecture. We further report that such degradations are correlated to the accumulated peak-to-average power ratio of the added traffic along a given path, and that managing this ratio through pre-distortion reduces the impact of adjusting the constellation size of neighboring channels. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America

Digital back-propagation for spectrally efficient WDM 112 Gbit/s PM m-ary QAM transmission

We report the performance of coherently-detected nine-channel WDM transmission over high dispersion fibers, using polarization multiplexed m-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (m = 4, 16, 64, 256) at 112 Gbit/s. Compensation of fiber nonlinearities via digital back-propagation enables up to 10 dB improvement in maximum transmittable power and similar to 8 dB Q(eff) improvement which translates to a nine-fold enhancement in transmission reach for PM-256QAM, where the largest improvements are associated with higher-order modulation formats. We further demonstrate that even under strong nonlinear distortion the transmission reach only reduces by a factor of similar to 2.5 for a 2 unit increase in capacity (log(2)m) when full band DBP is employed, in proportion to the required back-to-back OSNR.

Polymer optical fiber Bragg grating acting as an intrinsic biochemical concentration sensor

We demonstrate an intrinsic biochemical concentration sensor based on a polymer optical fiber Bragg grating. The water content absorbed by the polymer fiber from a surrounding solution depends on the concentration of the solution because of the osmotic effect. The variation of water content in the fiber causes a change in the fiber dimensions and a variation in refractive index and, therefore, a shift in the Bragg wavelength. Saline solutions with concentration from 0% to 22% were used to demonstrate the sensing principle, resulting in a total wavelength shift of 0.9 nm, allowing high-resolution concentration measurements to be realized.