Nanotube-based passively mode-locked Raman laser

We demonstrate passive mode-locking of a Raman fiber laser using a nanotube-based saturable absorber. The normal dispersion cavity generates highly-chirped 500 ps pulses that are compressed down to 2 ps, with 1.4 kW peak power. © 2011 OSA.

Temporal and statistical properties of the ytterbium doped fiber laser

Recently, temporal and statistical properties of quasi-CW fiber lasers have attracted a great attention. In particular, properties of Raman fiber laser (RFLs) have been studied both numerically and experimentally [1,2]. Experimental investigation is more challengeable, as the full generation optical bandwidth (typically hundreds of GHz for RFLs) is much bigger than real-time bandwidth of oscilloscopes (up to 60GHz for the newest models). So experimentally measured time dynamics is highly bandwidth averaged and do not provide precise information about overall statistical properties. To overpass this, one can use the spectral filtering technique to study temporal and statistical properties within optical bandwidth comparable with measurement bandwidth [3] or indirect measurements [4]. Ytterbium-doped fiber lasers (YDFL) are more suitable for experimental investigation, as their generation spectrum usually 10 times narrower. Moreover, recently ultra-narrow-band generation has been demonstrated in YDFL [5] which provides in principle possibility to measure time dynamics and statistics in real time using conventional oscilloscopes. © 2013 IEEE.

Atténuation d'effets non linéaires dans les lasers fibrés de haute puissance opérés en régime continu

Les lasers à fibre de haute puissance sont maintenant la solution privilégiée pour les applications de découpe industrielle. Le développement de lasers pour ces applications n’est pas simple en raison des contraintes qu’imposent les normes industrielles. La fabrication de lasers fibrés de plus en plus puissants est limitée par l’utilisation d’une fibre de gain avec une petite surface de mode propice aux effets non linéaires, d’où l’intérêt de développer de nouvelles techniques permettant l’atténuation de ceux-ci. Les expériences et simulations effectuées dans ce mémoire montrent que les modèles décrivant le lien entre la puissance laser et les effets non linéaires dans le cadre de l’analyse de fibres passives ne peuvent pas être utilisés pour l’analyse des effets non linéaires dans les lasers de haute puissance, des modèles plus généraux doivent donc développés. Il est montré que le choix de l’architecture laser influence les effets non linéaires. En utilisant l’équation de Schrödinger non linéaire généralisée, il a aussi été possible de montrer que pour une architecture en co-propagation, la diffusion Raman influence l’élargissement spectral. Finalement, les expériences et les simulations effectuées montrent qu’augmenter la réflectivité nominale et largeur de bande du réseau légèrement réfléchissant de la cavité permet d’atténuer la diffusion Raman, notamment en réduisant le gain Raman effectif.

Amplification d’impulsions brèves de haute énergie par effet Raman stimulé dans les fibres optiques

Le développement au cours des dernières décennies de lasers à fibre à verrouillage de modes permet aujourd’hui d’avoir accès à des sources fiables d’impulsions femtosecondes qui sont utilisées autant dans les laboratoires de recherche que pour des applications commerciales. Grâce à leur large bande passante ainsi qu’à leur excellente dissipation de chaleur, les fibres dopées avec des ions de terres rares ont permis l’amplification et la génération d’impulsions brèves de haute énergie avec une forte cadence. Cependant, les effets non linéaires causés par la faible taille du faisceau dans la fibre ainsi que la saturation de l’inversion de population du milieu compliquent l’utilisation d’amplificateurs fibrés pour l’obtention d’impulsions brèves dont l’énergie dépasse le millijoule. Diverses stratégies comme l’étirement des impulsions à des durées de l’ordre de la nanoseconde, l’utilisation de fibres à cristaux photoniques ayant un coeur plus large et l’amplification en parallèle ont permis de contourner ces limitations pour obtenir des impulsions de quelques millijoules ayant une durée inférieure à la picoseconde. Ce mémoire de maîtrise présente une nouvelle approche pour l’amplification d’impulsions brèves utilisant la diffusion Raman des verres de silice comme milieu de gain. Il est connu que cet effet non linéaire permet l’amplification avec une large bande passante et ce dernier est d’ailleurs couramment utilisé aujourd’hui dans les réseaux de télécommunications par fibre optique. Puisque l’adaptation des schémas d’amplification Raman existants aux impulsions brèves de haute énergie n’est pas directe, on propose plutôt un schéma consistant à transférer l’énergie d’une impulsion pompe quasi monochromatique à une impulsion signal brève étirée avec une dérive en fréquence. Afin d’évaluer le potentiel du gain Raman pour l’amplification d’impulsions brèves, ce mémoire présente un modèle analytique permettant de prédire les caractéristiques de l’impulsion amplifiée selon celles de la pompe et le milieu dans lequel elles se propagent. On trouve alors que la bande passante élevée du gain Raman des verres de silice ainsi que sa saturation inhomogène permettent l’amplification d’impulsions signal à une énergie comparable à celle de la pompe tout en conservant une largeur spectrale élevée supportant la compression à des durées très brèves. Quelques variantes du schéma d’amplification sont proposées, et leur potentiel est évalué par l’utilisation du modèle analytique ou de simulations numériques. On prédit analytiquement et numériquement l’amplification Raman d’impulsions à des énergies de quelques millijoules, dont la durée est inférieure à 150 fs et dont la puissance crête avoisine 20 GW.

Wavefront measurement of double-clad pulsed ytterbium fiber laser

Because of high efficiencies, compact structure, and excellent heat dissipation, high-power fiber lasers are extremely useful for applications such as cutting, welding, precision drilling, trimming, sensing, optical transmitter, material processing, micromachining, and so on. However, the wavefront of the double clad fiber laser doped with ytterbium is still unknown. In this paper, wavefront of a fiber laser is measured and the traditional Hartmann-shack wavefront sensing method is adopted. We measured a double clad fiber laser doped with ytterbium which produces pulse wave output at infrared wavelength. The wavefront shape and contour are reconstructed and the result shows that wavefront is slightly focused and not an ideal plane wavefront. Wavefront measurement of fiber laser will be useful to improving the lasers' performance and developing the coherent technique for its applications.

Intense upconversion luminescence and effect of local environment for Tm3+/Yb3+ co-doped novel TeO2-BiCl3 glass system

We present the results of a study that uses theoretical and experimental methods to investigate the characteristics of the upconversion luminescence of Tm3+/Yb3+ codoped TeO2-BiCl3 glass system as a function of the BiCl3 fraction. These glasses are potentially important in the design of upconversion fiber lasers. Effect of local environment around Tm3+ on upconversion fluorescence intensity was analyzed by theoretical calculations. The structure and spectroscopic properties were investigated in the experiments by measuring the Raman spectra, IR transmission spectra, and absorption and fluorescence intensities at room temperature. The results indicate that blue luminescence quantum efficiency increases with increasing BiCl3 content from 10 to 60 mol%, which were interpreted by the increase of asymmetry of glass structure, decrease of phonon energy and removing of OH- groups. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Fabrication and emission properties of Er3+/Yb3+ codoped tellurite glass fiber for broadband optical amplification

Tellurite glass is proposed as a host for broadband erbium-doped fiber amplifiers because of their excellent optical and chemical properties. A new single mode Er3+/Yb3+ codoped tellurite fiber with D-shape cladding geometry is fabricated in this work. When pumped at 980 nm, a broad erbium amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) nearly 100 nm in the wavelength range of 1450-1650 ran around 1.53 mu m is observed. It was found that the emission spectrum from erbium in tellurite glass fibers is almost twice as broad as the corresponding spectrum in tellurite bulk glass. The changes in ASE with regard to fiber lengths and pumping power were measured and discussed. The output of about 2.3 mW from Er3+/Yb3+ codoped tellurite fiber ASE source is obtained under the pump power of 700 mW. The broad 1.53 mu m emission of Er3+ in Er3+/Yb3+ codoped tellurite glass fiber can be used as host material for potential broadband optical amplifier and tunable fiber lasers. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Fabrication and amplified spontaneous emission spectrum of Er3+-doped tellurite glass fiber with D-shape cladding

Tellurite glass is proposed as a host for broadband erbium-doped fiber amplifiers because of their excellent optical and chemical properties. A single-mode Er3+-doped tellurite glass fiber with D-shape cladding was fabricated in this work. The characterization of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) from this newly fabricated Er3+-doped tellurite fibers are exhibited. When pumped at 980 nm, a very broad erbium ASE nearly 150 nm around 1.53 mum is observed. The changes in ASE with regard to fiber lengths and pumping power were measured and discussed. The output of 2 mW from Er3+-doped tellurite fiber ASE source was obtained under the pump power of 660 mW. The broad 1.53 mum emission of Er3+ in tellurite glass fiber can be used as host material for potential broadband optical amplifier and tunable fiber lasers. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Nanotube-based passively mode-locked Raman laser

We demonstrate passive mode-locking of a Raman fiber laser using a nanotube-based saturable absorber. The normal dispersion cavity generates highly-chirped 500 ps pulses that are compressed down to 2 ps, with 1.4 kW peak power. © OSA/ CLEO 2011.

All-fiber Yb-doped laser mode-locked by nanotubes

Single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) and graphene have emerged as promising saturable absorbers (SAs), due to their broad operation bandwidth and fast recovery times [1-3]. However, Yb-doped fiber lasers mode-locked using CNT and graphene SAs have generated relatively long pulses. All-fiber cavity designs are highly favored for their environmental robustness. Here, we demonstrate an all-fiber Yb-doped laser based on a SWNT saturable absorber, which allows generation of 8.7 ps-long pulses, externally compressed to 118 fs. To the best of our knowledge, these are the shortest pulses obtained with SWNT SAs from a Yb-doped fiber laser. © 2013 IEEE.

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.

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-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.

Amplitude noise on supercontinuum generated in microstructure fiber: Measurements and simulations

Supercontinua generated in microstructure fiber can exhibit significant excess amplitude noise. We present experimental and numerical studies of the origins of this excess noise and its dependence on the input laser pulse parameters.