Investigation on a pressure-gradient fiber laser hydrophone

In this paper, a pressure-gradient fiber laser hydrophone is demonstrated. Two brass diaphragms are installed at the end of a metal cylinder as sensing elements. A distributed feedback fiber laser, fixed at the center of the two diaphragms, is elongated or shortened due to the acoustic wave. There are two orifices at the middle of the cylinder. So this structure can work as a pressure-gradient microphone in the acoustic field. Furthermore, the hydrostatic pressure is self-compensated and an ultra-thin dimension is achieved. Theoretical analysis is given based on the electro-acoustic theory. Field trials are carried out to test the performance of the hydrophone. A sensitivity of 100 nm MPa-1 has been achieved. Due to the small dimensions, no directivity is found in the test.

A novel ultra-narrow transmission-band fiber Bragg grating and its application in a single-longitudinal-mode fiber laser with improved efficiency

A novel design approach to ultra-narrow transmission-band fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is proposed and demonstrated for the first time. The new grating consists of multiple identical distributed-Bragg reflector (DBR) cavities and a it-phase-shifted gap, and hence, the proposed laser is constructed by the cascade of these identical DBR fiber lasers. By manufacturing the proposed grating in a piece of Er-Yb codoped fiber, a single-wavelength single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) fiber laser with improved efficiency is demonstrated experimentally. The experimental results show that the pump-to-signal conversion efficiency of the proposed laser is improved by a factor of two in comparison with the optimized distributed-feedback (DFB) fiber lasers. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A novel dual-wavelength DFB fiber laser based on symmetrical FBG structure

A novel grating structure is proposed and demonstrated to obtain stable dual-wavelength (DW) distributed-feedback (DFB) fiber lasers at room temperature. The proposed grating is based on a symmetrical structure, where one half is periodically sampled by "0"-to-"pi" period and the other half is done by "pi"-to-"0" period. This structure can create two separated resonance cavities and hence achieve the stable DW lasing operation. By fabricating the proposed grating on a piece of Er: Yb-codoped fiber, we experimentally obtain a stable DW-DFB fiber laser with wavelength spacing of similar to 440 pm at room temperature.

Non-collinear CPOPA seeded by an Yb3+-doped self-starting passive mode-locked fiber laser

Using a home-made seed at 1053 nm from a Yb3+-doped passively mode-locked fiber laser of 1.5 nJ/pulse, 362 ps pulse duration with a repetition rate of 3.842 MHz, a compact, low cost, stable and excellent beam quality non-collinear chirped pulse optical parametric amplifier omitting the bulky pulse stretcher has been demonstrated. A gain higher than 4.0 x 10(6), single pulse energy exceeding 6 mJ with fluctuations less than 2% rms, 14 nm amplified signal spectrum and recompressed pulse duration of 525 fs are achieved. This provides a novel and simple amplification scheme. (c) 2007 Optical Society of America.

Environmentally stable ytterbium figure-of-eight fiber laser producing 177-fs pulses

Pulses of 177 fs and 1035 nm, with average power of 1.2 mW, have been generated directly from a passively mode-locked Yb-doped figure-of-eight fiber laser, with a nonlinear optical loop mirror for mode-locking and pairs of diffraction gratings for intracavity dispersion compensation. To our knowledge, these are the shortest pulses ever to come from a passively mode-locked Yb-doped figure-of-eight fiber laser. This represents a 5-fold reduction in pulse duration compared with that of previously reported passively mode-locked Yb-doped figure-of-eight fiber lasers. Stable pulse trains are produced at the fundamental repetition rate of the resonator, 24.0 MHz. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Low Threshold Stretched-pulses Mode-locked Er3+-doped Fiber Laser with Ring Cavity

National Natural Science Foundationa of China(602537060，60408002)

40-GHz wavelength tunable mode-locked SOA-based fiber laser with 40-nm tuning range

A 40-GHz wavelength tunable mode-locked fiber ring laser based oil cross-gain modulation in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is presented. Pulse trains with a pulse width of 10.5 ps at 40-GHz repetition frequency are obtained. The laser operates with almost 40-nm tuning range. The relationship between the key laser parameters and the output pulse characteristics is analyzed experimentally.

4-W single transverse mode Yb3+-doped fiber laser pumped by 915-nm laser diode array

A cladding-pumped ytterbium-doped fiber laser is described in this letter. Using unusual pumping source with 915-nm wavelength, slope efficiency up to 75% with respect to absorbed input power and output power is obtained, a maximum output power of 4.006 W with fundamental mode is measured.

A double wavelength DFB laser with an identical active area for CWDM

A novel distribute feedback (DFB) laser which gave two different wavelengths under two distinct work conditions was fabricated. The laser consists of two Bragg gratings with different periods corresponding to wavelength spacing of 20 nm in an identical active area. When driving current was injected into one of the different sections separately, two different wavelengths at 1542.4 and 1562.5 nm were realized. The side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) of 45 dB or more both for the two Bragg wavelengths were achieved. The fabricating process of the laser was just the same as that of traditional DFB laser diode. This device can be potentially used in coarse wavelength division multiplexer (CWDM) as a promising light source and the technology idea can be used to enlarge the transmission capacity in metro area network (MAN).

Low-timing-jitter, stretched-pulse passively mode-locked fiber laser with tunable repetition rate and high operation stability

We design a low-timing-jitter, repetition-rate-tunable, stretched-pulse passively mode-locked fiber laser by using a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror (NALM), a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM), and a tunable optical delay line in the laser configuration. Low-timing-jitter optical pulses are stably produced when a SESAM and a 0.16 m dispersion compensation fiber are employed in the laser cavity. By inserting a tunable optical delay line between NALM and SESAM, the variable repetition-rate operation of a self-starting, passively mode-locked fiber laser is successfully demonstrated over a range from 49.65 to 50.47 MHz. The experimental results show that the newly designed fiber laser can maintain the mode locking at the pumping power of 160 mW to stably generate periodic optical pulses with width less than 170 fs and timing jitter lower than 75 fs in the 1.55 mu m wavelength region, when the fundamental repetition rate of the laser is continuously tuned between 49.65 and 50.47 MHz. Moreover, this fiber laser has a feature of turn-key operation with high repeatability of its fundamental repetition rate in practice.