Optimal span length in high-speed transmission systems with hybrid Raman-erbium-doped fiber amplification

We show, using nonlinearity management, that the optimal performance in high-bit-rate dispersion-managed fiber systems with hybrid amplification is achieved for a specific amplifier spacing that is different from the asymptotically vanishing length corresponding to ideally distributed amplification [Opt. Lett. 15, 1064 (1990)]. In particular, we prove the existence of a nontrivial optimal span length for 40-Gbit/s wavelength-division transmission systems with Raman-erbium-doped fiber amplification. Optimal amplifier lengths are obtained for several dispersion maps based on commonly used transmission fibers. © 2005 Optical Society of America.

Self-phase modulation dependent dispersion mitigation in high power SSB and DSB + dispersion compensated modulated radio-over-fiber links

The joint effect of fiber chromatic dispersion and fiber nonlinearity onto single-sideband and double-sideband modulated radio-over-fiber links is investigated. Experimental and simulated results show that modulation suppression caused by the chromatic dispersion in radio-over-fiber links can be successfully eliminated in both schemes only when the system is in the linear regime. Under nonlinear transmission the received microwave carrier power depends on the optical incident power.

Modeling and analysis of high performance L-band erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA)

The performances of L-band EDFA are modeled and analyzed, based on C-band EDFA, through variation of pump power, ion concentration and fiber length. The fiber length promises higher performance than others. © 2005 Optical Society of America.

Super-high temperature sensitivity of long-period gratings in B/Ge co-doped fiber

Long period fiber grating (LPFG) can be used as active gain controlling device in EDFA. However, LPFGs fabricated in the standard telecom fiber only have a typical temperature sensitivity of 3-10nm/100°C, which may not be sufficient for implementing tuneable filters capable of wide tuning range and high tuning efficiency. In this paper, we report a theoretical and experimental investigation of thermal properties of LPFGs fabricated in B/Ge co-doped optical fiber. We have found that the temperature sensitivity of the LPFGs in the B/Ge fiber is considerably increased compared with those produced in the standard fiber. The LPFGs written in the B/Ge fiber have achieved, on average, one order of magnitude higher sensitivity than that of the LPFGs produced in the standard telecom fiber. We have also identified that the thermal response of LPFG is strongly dependent on the order of the coupled resonant cladding mode. The maximum sensitivity of 1.75nm/°C achieved by the 10th cladding mode of the 240μm LPFG is nearly 24 times that of the minimum value (0.075nm/C) exhibited by the 30th mode of the 34μm LPFG. Such devices may lead to high-efficiency and low-cost thermal/electrical tunable loss filters or sensors with extremely high temperature resolution.

High-temperature sensitivity of long-period gratings in B-Ge codoped fiber

We report an investigation of thermal properties of long-period fiber gratings (LPFGs) of various periods fabricated in the conventional B-Ge codoped fiber. It has been found that the temperature sensitivity of the LPFGs produced in the B-Ge fiber can be significantly enhanced as compared with the standard telecom fiber. A total of 27.5-nm spectral shift was achieved from only 10 °C change in temperature for an LPFG with 240-μm period, demonstrating a first ever reported high sensitivity of 2.75 nm/°C. Such an LPFG may lead to high-efficiency and low-cost thermal/electrical tunable loss filters or sensors with extremely high-temperature resolution. The nonlinear thermal response of the supersensitive LPG was also reported and first explained.

Differential birefringence in Bragg gratings in multicore fiber under transverse stress

We present experimental measurements of the peak splitting of the reflection spectra of fiber Bragg gratings as a result of birefringence induced by transverse loading of a multicore fiber. Measurements show that the splitting is a function of the applied load and the direction of the load relative to the azimuth of the fiber. A model for calculating the stress in the fiber that is due to an applied load is in good agreement with our experimental observations.

Optic sensors of high refractive-index responsivity and low thermal cross sensitivity that use fiber Bragg gratings of >80° tilted structures

For the first time to the authors' knowledge, fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) with >80° tilted structures nave been fabricated and characterized. Their performance in sensing temperature, strain, and the surrounding medium's refractive index was investigated. In comparison with normal FBGs and long-period gratings (LPGs), >80° tilted FBGs exhibit significantly higher refractive-index responsivity and lower thermal cross sensitivity. When the grating sensor was used to detect changes in refractive index, a responsivity as high as 340 nm/refractive-index unit near an index of 1.33 was demonstrated, which is three times higher than that of conventional LPGs. © 2006 Optical Society of America.

High-efficiency generation in a short random fiber laser

We demonstrate a high-efficiency random lasing in a 850 m span of a phosphosilicate fiber. Random distributed feedback owing to the Rayleigh backscattering in the fiber enables narrowband generation with output power of up to 7.3 W at the Stokes wavelength λS = 1308 nm from 11 Wof the pump power at λP = 1115 nm. The laser demonstrates unique generation efficiency. Near the generation threshold, more than 2 W of output power is generated from only 0.5 W of pump power excess over the generation threshold. At high pump power, the quantum conversion efficiency defined as a ratio of generated and pump photons at the laser output exceeds 100%. Itis explained by the fact that every pump photon is converted into the Stokes photon far from the output fiber end, while the Stokes photons have lower attenuation than the pump photons. © 2014 Astro Ltd.

Biconical-taper-assisted fiber interferometer with modes coupling enhancement for high-sensitive curvature measurement

A modal interferometer based on multimode-singlemode-multimode fiber structure built with a biconical taper for fiber curvature measurement is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Due to the tapered singlemode fiber acting as a high-efficient mode power converter to enhance the modes coupling, curvature sensor with improved sensitivity is achieved by monitoring the defined fringe visibility of the interference spectrum. The measuring range can be tuned by changing the waist diameter of the fiber taper. Meanwhile, the sensor shows an intrinsic ability to overcome the influence of temperature cross-sensitivity and the power fluctuation of light source. The advantages of easy fabrication, high-quality spectrum with improved sensitivity, and small hysteresis will provide great potential for practical applications of the sensor. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Direct design of high channel-count fiber Bragg grating filters with low index modulation

A novel method for designing high channel-count fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) is proposed. For the first time, tailored group delay is introduced into the target reflection spectra to obtain a more even distribution of the refractive index modulation. This approach results in the reduction of the maximum refractive index modulation to physically realizable levels. The maximum index modulation reduction factors are all greater than 5.5. This is a significant improvement compared with previously reported results. Numerical results show that the thus designed high channel-count FBG filters exhibit superior characteristics including 30 dB channel isolation, a flat-top and near 100% reflectivity in each channel. © 2012 Optical Society of America.

High-visibility photonic crystal fiber interferometer as multifunctional sensor

A photonic crystal fiber (PCF) interferometer that exhibits record fringe contrast (~40 dB) is demonstrated along with its sensing applications. The device operates in reflection mode and consists of a centimeter-long segment of properly selected PCF fusion spliced to single mode optical fibers. Two identical collapsed zones in the PCF combined with its modal properties allow high-visibility interference patterns. The interferometer is suitable for refractometric and liquid level sensing. The measuring refractive index range goes from 1.33 to 1.43 and the maximum resolution is ~1.6 × 10-5. © 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

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.

High performance liquid level monitoring system based on polymer fiber Bragg gratings embedded in silicone rubber diaphragm

Liquid-level sensing technologies have attracted great prominence, because such measurements are essential to industrial applications, such as fuel storage, flood warning and in the biochemical industry. Traditional liquid level sensors are based on electromechanical techniques; however they suffer from intrinsic safety concerns in explosive environments. In recent years, given that optical fiber sensors have lots of well-established advantages such as high accuracy, costeffectiveness, compact size, and ease of multiplexing, several optical fiber liquid level sensors have been investigated which are based on different operating principles such as side-polishing the cladding and a portion of core, using a spiral side-emitting optical fiber or using silica fiber gratings. The present work proposes a novel and highly sensitive liquid level sensor making use of polymer optical fiber Bragg gratings (POFBGs). The key elements of the system are a set of POFBGs embedded in silicone rubber diaphragms. This is a new development building on the idea of determining liquid level by measuring the pressure at the bottom of a liquid container, however it has a number of critical advantages. The system features several FBG-based pressure sensors as described above placed at different depths. Any sensor above the surface of the liquid will read the same ambient pressure. Sensors below the surface of the liquid will read pressures that increase linearly with depth. The position of the liquid surface can therefore be approximately identified as lying between the first sensor to read an above-ambient pressure and the next higher sensor. This level of precision would not in general be sufficient for most liquid level monitoring applications; however a much more precise determination of liquid level can be made by linear regression to the pressure readings from the sub-surface sensors. There are numerous advantages to this multi-sensor approach. First, the use of linear regression using multiple sensors is inherently more accurate than using a single pressure reading to estimate depth. Second, common mode temperature induced wavelength shifts in the individual sensors are automatically compensated. Thirdly, temperature induced changes in the sensor pressure sensitivity are also compensated. Fourthly, the approach provides the possibility to detect and compensate for malfunctioning sensors. Finally, the system is immune to changes in the density of the monitored fluid and even to changes in the effective force of gravity, as might be obtained in an aerospace application. The performance of an individual sensor was characterized and displays a sensitivity (54 pm/cm), enhanced by more than a factor of 2 when compared to a sensor head configuration based on a silica FBG published in the literature, resulting from the much lower elastic modulus of POF. Furthermore, the temperature/humidity behavior and measurement resolution were also studied in detail. The proposed configuration also displays a highly linear response, high resolution and good repeatability. The results suggest the new configuration can be a useful tool in many different applications, such as aircraft fuel monitoring, and biochemical and environmental sensing, where accuracy and stability are fundamental. © (2015) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

High speed and high resolution demodulation system for hybrid WDM/FDM based fiber microstructure sensor network by using Fabry-Perot filter

Hybrid WDM/TDM enabled microstructure based optical fiber sensor network with large capacity is proposed. Assisted by Fabry-Perot filter, the demodulation system with high speed of 500Hz and high wavelength resolution less than 4.91pm is realized. © OSA 2015.

Long-range, high bit-rate secure key distribution link utilizing Raman Ultra-long fiber laser (UFL)

The distribution of the secret key is the weakest link of many data encryption systems. Quantum key distribution (QKD) schemes provide attractive solutions [1], however their implementation remains challenging and their range and bit-rate are limited. Moreover, practical QKD systems, employ real-life components and are, therefore, vulnerable to diverse attack schemes [2]. Ultra-Long fiber lasers (UFLs) have been drawing much attention recently because of their fundamentally different properties compared to conventional lasers as well as their unique applications [3]. Here, we demonstrate a 100Bps, practically secure key distribution, over a 500km link, employing Raman gain UFL. Fig. 1(a) depicts a schematic of the UFL system. Each user has an identical set of two wavelength selective mirrors centered at l0 and l 1. In order to exchange a key-bit, each user independently choose one of these mirrors and introduces it as a laser reflector at their end. If both users choose identical mirrors, a clear signal develops and the bits in these cases are discarded. However if they choose complementary mirrors, (1, 0 or 0, 1 states), the UFL remains below lasing threshold and no signal evolves. In these cases, an eavesdropper can only detect noise and is unable to determine the mirror choice of the users, where the choice of mirrors represent a single key bit (e.g. Alice's choice of mirror is the key-bit). These bits are kept and added to the key. The absence of signal in the secure states faxilitates fast measurements to distinguish between the non-secure and the secure states and to determine the key-bit in the later case, Sequentially reapeating the single bit exchange protocol generate the entire keys of any desirable length. © 2013 IEEE.