Environmentally stable high-power soliton fiber lasers that use chirped fiber Bragg gratings

Environmentally stable high-power erbium fiber soliton lasers are constructed by Kerr or carrier-type mode locking. We obtain high-energy pulses by using relatively short fiber lengths and providing large amounts of negative dispersion with chirped fiber Bragg gratings. The pulse energies and widths generated with both types of soliton laser are found to scale with the square root of the cavity dispersion. Kerr mode locking requires pulses with an approximately three times higher nonlinear phase shift in the cavity than carrier mode locking, which leads to the generation of slightly shorter pulses with as much as seven times higher pulse energies at the mode-locking threshold.

Concatenated all-optical loop mirror switches

Synthesis of a sharp switching characteristic is experimentally demonstrated by concatenation of nonlinear optical loop mirrors. A novel configuration has been used which results in three terminal operation of the device. This device can be used as a logic gate and for pulse shaping to produce square pulses.

Design and fabrication of fiber Bragg gratings with V-shaped dispersion profile

We propose a new type of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) with a V-shaped dispersion profile. We demonstrate that such V-shaped FBGs bring advantages in manipulation of optical signals compared to conventional FBGs with a constant dispersion, e.g., they can produce larger chirp for the same input pulsewidth and/or can be used as pulse shapers. Application of the proposed V-shaped FBGs for signal prechirping in fiber transmission is examined. The proposed design of the V-shaped FBG can be easily extended to embrace multichannel devices.

Biochemical sensor based on a novel all-fibre cavity ring down spectroscopy technique incorporating a tilted fibre Bragg grating

A novel all-fibre cavity ring down spectroscopy technique is proposed where a tilt fibre Bragg grating (TFBG) or long-period grating (LPG) in the cavity provides sensitivity to surrounding medium. Such configuration with an LPG as the representative was theoretically analyzed. Two spectral bands were identified employable for sensing of surrounding refractive index for a weak LPG while only one band existed for a strong LPG. A TFBG, with enhanced sensitivity compared to usual LPGs, was used in a ring down cavity of 1 m constructed with 2 fibre Bragg gratings as the reflectors and the decay time changed from 220 to 450 ns when the TFBG was immersed into water from air.

Long distance dispersion managed soliton transmission experiments

This thesis presents results of transmission experiments using optical solitons in a dispersion managed optical fibre recirculating loop. The basic concepts of pulse propagation in optical fibre are introduced before optical solitons and their use in optically amplified fibre systems are discussed. The role of dispersion management in such systems is then considered. The design, operation and limitations of the recirculating loop and soliton sources which were used and the experimental techniques are described before the experimental work is presented. The experimental work covers a number of areas all of which used dispersion management of the transmission line. A novel ultra-long distance propagation scheme which achieved low timing jitter by suppression of the amplifier noise and by working close to the zero dispersion wavelength has been discovered. The use of fibre Bragg gratings as wavelength filters to suppress noise and reduce timing jitter has been investigated. The performance of the fibre grating cornpared favourably with that of a bulk device and was in good agreement with theoretical predictions. The upgrade of existing standard fibre systems to higher bit rates is currently an important issue. The possibility of using solitons with dispersion compensation to allow an increase in data rate of existing standard fibre systems to 10Gbit/s over 5000km has been demonstrated. The applicability of this technique to longer distances, higher bit rates or longer amplifier spans is also investigated by optimisation of the dispersion management scheme. The use of fibre Bragg gratings as the dispersion compensating elements in such standard fibre transmission experiments has been examined and the main problem that these devices currently have, high polarisation mode dispersion, is discussed. The likely future direction of optical communications and what part solitons and dispersion management will play in this development is discussed in the thesis conclusions

All optical networking beyond 10 Gbits/s OTDM networks based on electro-optic modulators and fibre ring lasers

This thesis examines options for high capacity all optical networks. Specifically optical time division multiplexed (OTDM) networks based on electro-optic modulators are investigated experimentally, whilst comparisons with alternative approaches are carried out. It is intended that the thesis will form the basis of comparison between optical time division multiplexed networks and the more mature approach of wavelength division multiplexed networks. Following an introduction to optical networking concepts, the required component technologies are discussed. In particular various optical pulse sources are described with the demanding restrictions of optical multiplexing in mind. This is followed by a discussion of the construction of multiplexers and demultiplexers, including favoured techniques for high speed clock recovery. Theoretical treatments of the performance of Mach Zehnder and electroabsorption modulators support the design criteria that are established for the construction of simple optical time division multiplexed systems. Having established appropriate end terminals for an optical network, the thesis examines transmission issues associated with high speed RZ data signals. Propagation of RZ signals over both installed (standard fibre) and newly commissioned fibre routes are considered in turn. In the case of standard fibre systems, the use of dispersion compensation is summarised, and the application of mid span spectral inversion experimentally investigated. For green field sites, soliton like propagation of high speed data signals is demonstrated. In this case the particular restrictions of high speed soliton systems are discussed and experimentally investigated, namely the increasing impact of timing jitter and the downward pressure on repeater spacings due to the constraint of the average soliton model. These issues are each addressed through investigations of active soliton control for OTDM systems and through investigations of novel fibre types respectively. Finally the particularly remarkable networking potential of optical time division multiplexed systems is established, and infinite node cascadability using soliton control is demonstrated. A final comparison of the various technologies for optical multiplexing is presented in the conclusions, where the relative merits of the technologies for optical networking emerges as the key differentiator between technologies.

Experimental and theoretical characterisation of tunable fibre gratings

This thesis presents details on both theoretical and experimental aspects of UV written fibre gratings. The main body of the thesis deals with the design, fabrication and testing of telecommunication optical fibre grating devices, but also an accurate theoretical analysis of intra-core fibre gratings is presented. Since more than a decade, fibre gratings have been extensively used in the telecommunication field (as filters, dispersion compensators, and add/drop multiplexers for instance). Gratings for telecommunication should conform to very high fabrication standards as the presence of any imperfection raises the noise level in the transmission system compromising its ability of transmitting intelligible sequence of bits to the receiver. Strong side lobes suppression and high and sharp reflection profile are then necessary characteristics. A fundamental part of the theoretical and experimental work reported in this thesis is about apodisation. The physical principle of apodisation is introduced and a number of apodisation techniques, experimental results and numerical optimisation of the shading functions and all the practical parameters involved in the fabrication are detailed. The measurement of chromatic dispersion in fibres and FBGs is detailed and an estimation of its accuracy is given. An overview on the possible methods that can be implemented for the fabrication of tunable fibre gratings is given before detailing a new dispersion compensator device based on the action of a distributed strain onto a linearly chirped FBG. It is shown that tuning of second and third order dispersion of the grating can be obtained by the use of a specially designed multipoint bending rig. Experiments on the recompression of optical pulses travelling long distances are detailed for 10 Gb/s and 40 Gb/s. The characterisation of a new kind of double section LPG fabricated on a metal-clad coated fibre is reported. The fabrication of the device is made easier by directly writing the grating through the metal coating. This device may be used to overcome the recoating problems associated with standard LPGs written in step-index fibre. Also, it can be used as a sensor for simultaneous measurements of temperature and surrounding medium refractive index.

Advanced optical techniques for high capacity transmission

This thesis presents several advanced optical techniques that are crucial for improving high capacity transmission systems. The basic theory of optical fibre communications are introduced before optical solitons and their usage in optically amplified fibre systems are discussed. The design, operation, limitations and importance of the recirculating loop are illustrated. The crucial role of dispersion management in the transmission systems is then considered. Two of the most popular dispersion compensation methods - dispersion compensating fibres and fibre Bragg gratings - are emphasised. A tunable dispersion compensator is fabricated using the linear chirped fibre Bragg gratings and a bending rig. Results show that it is capable of compensating not only the second order dispersion, but also higher order dispersion. Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS) are studied and discussed. Different dispersion maps are performed for all Raman amplified standard fibre link to obtain maximum transmission distances. Raman amplification is used in most of our loop experiments since it improves the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) and significantly reduces the nonlinear intrachannel effects of the transmission systems. The main body of the experimental work is concerned with nonlinear optical switching using the nonlinear optical loop mirrors (NOLMs). A number of different types of optical loop mirrors are built, tested and implemented in the transmission systems for noise suppression and 2R regeneration. Their results show that for 2R regeneration, NOLM does improve system performance, while NILM degrades system performance due to its sensitivity to the input pulse width, and the NALM built is unstable and therefore affects system performance.

Ultrashort pulse generation from diode laser devices

This thesis presents a detailed, experiment-based study of generation of ultrashort optical pulses from diode lasers. Simple and cost-effective techniques were used to generate high power, high quality optical short pulses at various wavelength windows. The major achievements presented in the thesis is summarised as follows. High power pulses generation is one of the major topics discussed in the thesis. Although gain switching is the simplest way for ultrashort pulse generation, it proves to be quite effective to deliver high energy pulses on condition that the pumping pulses with extremely fast rising time and high enough amplitude are applied on specially designed pulse generators. In the experiment on a grating-coupled surface emitting laser (GCSEL), peak power as high as 1W was achieved even when its spectral bandwidth was controlled within 0.2nm. Another experiment shows violet picosecond pulses with peak power as high as 7W was achieved when the intensive electrical pulses were applied on optimised DC bias to pump on InGaN violet diode laser. The physical mechanism of this phenomenon, as we considered, may attributed to the self-organised quantum dots structure in the laser. Control of pulse quality, including spectral quality and temporal profile, is an important issue for high power pulse generation. The ways to control pulse quality described in the thesis are also based on simple and effective techniques. For instance, GCSEL used in our experiment has a specially designed air-grating structure for out-coupling of optical signals; hence, a tiny flat aluminium mirror was placed closed to the grating section and resulted in a wavelength tuning range over 100nm and the best side band suppression ratio of 40dB. Self-seeding, as an effective technique for spectral control of pulsed lasers, was demonstrated for the first time in a violet diode laser. In addition, control of temporal profile of the pulse is demonstrated in an overdriven DFB laser. Wavelength tuneable fibre Bragg gratings were used to tailor the huge energy tail of the high power pulse. The whole system was compact and robust. The ultimate purpose of our study is to design a new family of compact ultrafast diode lasers. Some practical ideas of laser design based on gain-switched and Q-switched devices are also provided in the end.

Advanced optical fibre gratings and applications

DUE TO COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIONS ONLY AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION AT ASTON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES WITH PRIOR ARRANGEMENT This thesis describes a detailed study of advanced optical fibre sensors based on fibre Bragg grating (FBG), tilted fibre Bragg grating (TFBG) and long-period grating (LPG) and their applications in optical communications and sensing. The major contributions presented in this thesis are summarised below.The most important contribution from the research work presented in this thesis is the implementation of in-fibre grating based refractive index (RI) sensors, which could be the good candidates for optical biochemical sensing. Several fibre grating based RI sensors have been proposed and demonstrated by exploring novel grating structures and different fibre types, and employing efficient hydrofluoric acid etching technique to enhance the RI sensitivity. All the RI devices discussed in this thesis have been used to measure the concentration of sugar solution to simulate the chemical sensing. Efforts have also been made to overcome the RI-temperature cross-sensitivity for practical application. The demonstrated in-fibre grating based RI sensors could be further implemented as potential optical biosensors by applying bioactive coatings to realise high bio-sensitivity and bio-selectivity.Another major contribution of this thesis is the application of TFBGs. A prototype interrogation system by the use of TFBG with CCD-array was implemented to perform wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) interrogation around 800nm wavelength region with the advantages of compact size, fast detection speed and low-cost. As a high light, a novel in-fibre twist sensors utilising strong polarisation dependant coupling behaviour of an 81°-TFBG was presented to demonstrate the high torsion sensitivity and capability of direction recognition.

Switching and generation of ultrashort pulses using all-fibre devices

Serial and parallel interconnection of photonic devices is integral to the construction of any all-optical data processing system. This thesis presents results from a series of experiments centering on the use of the nonlinear-optical loop mirror (NOLM) switch in architectures for the manipulation and generation of ultrashort pulses. Detailed analysis of soliton switching in a single NOLM and cascade of two NOLM's is performed, centering on primary limitations to device operation, effect of cascading on amplitude response, and impact of switching on the characteristics of incident pulses. By using relatively long input pulses, device failure due to stimulated Raman generation is postponed to demonstrate multiple-peaked switching for the first time. It is found that while cascading leads to a sharpening of the overall switching characteristic, pulse spectral and temporal integrity is not significantly degraded, and emerging pulses retain their essential soliton character. In addition, by including an asymmetrically placed in-fibre Bragg reflector as a wavelength selective loss element in the basic NOLM configuration, both soliton self-switching and dual-wavelength control-pulse switching are spectrally quantised. Results are presented from a novel dual-wavelength laser configuration generating pulse trains with an ultra-low rms inter-pulse-stream timing jitter level of 630fs enabling application in ultrafast switching environments at data rates as high as 130GBits/s. In addition, the fibre NOLM is included in architectures for all-optical memory, demonstrating storage and logical inversion of a 0.5kByte random data sequence; and ultrafast phase-locking of a gain-switched distributed feedback laser at 1.062GHz, the fourteenth harmonic of the system baseband frequency. The stringent requirements for environmental robustness of these architectures highlight the primary weaknesses of the NOLM in its fibre form and recommendations to overcome its inherent drawbacks are presented.

Fiber Bragg gratings inscribed using 800nm femtosecond laser and a phase mask in singleand multi-core mid-IR glass fibers

For the first time, Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) structures have been inscribed in single-core passive germanate and three-core passive and active tellurite glass fibers using 800nm femtosecond (fs) laser and phase mask technique. With fs peak power intensity in the order of 1011W/cm2, the FBG spectra with 2nd and 3rd order resonances at 1540 and 1033nm in the germanate glass fiber and 2nd order resonances at ~1694 and ~1677nm with strengths up to 14dB in all three cores in the tellurite fiber were observed. Thermal responsivities of the FBGs made in these mid-IR glass fibers were characterized, showing average temperature responsivity ~20pm/°C. Strain responsivities of the FBGs in germanate glass fiber were measured to be 1.219pm/µe.

All-optical nonlinear signal processing at a RZ receiver

We propose a novel all-optical signal processor for use at a return-to-zero receiver utilising loop mirror intensity filtering and nonlinear pulse broadening in normal dispersion fibre. The device offers reamplification and cleaning up of the optical signals, and phase margin improvement. The efficiency of the technique is demonstrated by application to 40 Gbit/s data transmission.

3D reconstruction of complex dielectric function of the glass during the femtosecond micro-fabrication

We measure complex amplitude of scattered wave in the far field, and justify theoretically and numerically solution of the inverse scattering problem. This allows single-shot reconstructing of dielectric function distribution during direct femtosecond laser micro-fabrication.

Advanced fibre gratings fabricated in standard and infrared glass fibres by ultraviolet and near-infrared-femtosecond lasers

In this thesis, I describe studies on fabrication, spectral characteristics and applications of tilted fibre gratings (TFGs) with small, large and 45° tilted structures and novel developments in fabrication of fibre Bragg gratings (FBGs) and long period gratings (LPGs) in normal silica and mid-infrared (mid-IR) glass fibres using near-IR femtosecond laser. One of the major contributions presented in this thesis is the systematic investigation of structures, inscription methods and spectral, polarisation dependent loss (PDL) and thermal characteristics of TFGs with small (<45°), large (>45°) and 45° tilted structures. I have experimentally characterised TFGs, obtaining relationships between the radiation angle, central wavelength of the radiation profile, Bragg resonance and the tilt angle, which are consistent with theoretical simulation based on the mode-coupling theory. Furthermore, thermal responses have been measured for these three types of TFGs, showing the transmission spectra of large and 45° TFGs are insensitive to the temperature change, unlike the normal and small angle tilted FBGs. Based on the distinctive optical properties, TFGs have been developed into interrogation system and sensors, which form the other significant contributions of the work presented in this thesis. The 10°-TFG based 800nm WDM interrogation system can function not just as an in-fibre spectrum analyser but also possess refractive index sensing capability. By utilising the unique polarisation properties, the 81 °-TFG based sensors are capable of sensing the transverse loading and twisting with sensitivities of 2.04pW/(kg/m) and 145.90pW/rad, repectively. The final but the most important contribution from the research work presented in this thesis is the development of novel grating inscription techniques using near-IR femtosecond laser. A number of LPGs and FBGs were successfully fabricated in normal silica and mid-IR glass fibres using point-by-point and phase-mask techniques. LPGs and 1st and 2nd order FBGs have been fabricated in these mid-IR glass fibres showing resonances covering the wavelength range from 1200 to 1700nm with the strengths up to 13dB. In addition, the thermal and strain sensitivities of these gratings have been systematically investigated. All the results from these initial but systematic works will provide useful function characteristics information for future fibre grating based devices and applications in mid-IR range.