We report a passive mode-locked fiber laser (PMLFL) in a novel configuration to generate a single soliton with ultra-low repetition rate. The configuration includes a Faraday mirror after the first half of the cavity length to counteract the nonlinear polarization rotation effects. The total cavity length is 428 m including a 400-m SMF-28 fiber which was twisted to cancel the linear birefringence. The strict polarization control establishes a relation between the regimes of generation and the polarization state of the pulses propagating in the cavity. By properly adjusting the initial polarization state, we observed three different emission regimes, the single soliton regime (SR), conventional noise-like pulses (NLP) and noise-like square-waveform pulse (NLSWP). In the SR, we obtain a 2.9 ps pulse duration centered at 1558.7 nm with a 467.2 kHz repetition rate.
We report dual-wavelength mode-locked operation of a passively mode-locked Er-doped fiber laser (EDFL) including two sections of a fiber with equal length, one right hand twisted and another left hand twisted, and a double-pass amplifier with Faraday Mirror (FM). The configuration allows cancellation of the influence of both linear and circular birefringence and strict control of the polarization of pulses in the cavity. Depending on the polarization azimuth we observed synchronous dual-wavelength, 1532 nm and 1560 nm, noise-like pulses (NLP), and desynchronized soliton emission.
We report the dynamics of multi-pulse in a ring cavity passively mode-locked fiber laser with a strict control of the polarization state. We study the relation between the polarization state of the pulses propagating in the cavity and the regimes of generation. We have found that small ellipticities, the laser generates one bunch of pulses in the cavity, while at higher ellipticities the laser generates multiple bunches. At constant ellipticity we rotated the polarization azimuth and observed a regime transition from the generation of a bunch of solitons to that of noise-like pulses (NLP).
The generation of clean solitons is important for a number of applications such as optical analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) based on soliton self-frequency shift. In real sources the quality of the pulses is deteriorated by dispersive waves, continuous wave (CW), amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). The dispersive waves appear in the spectral profile as side-lobe components that would limit the resolution of ADC. Spectral compression techniques cause the appearance of a pedestal on the spectrum. All of these imperfections of pulses have to be eliminated to improve the performance of alloptical systems. The nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM) is a good candidate for these tasks. In the present work we report the implementation of a polarization-imbalanced NOLM for soliton cleaning. The NOLM consists of a nearly symmetrical coupler with a 51/49 coupling ratio, 100 m of twisted OFS Truewave fiber whose dispersion value is 9 ps/nm/km at 1550 nm, and a tunable in-line fiber polarization controller (PC) asymmetrically inserted inside the loop. The use of the nearly symmetrical coupler allows very low transmission for low power components of radiation. At the same time adjustment of the PC allows the adjustment of the nonlinear characteristic to have a maximum transmission for solitons with different durations. We used two sources of pulses, SESAM based and a ring fiber laser. At the appropriate adjustment of PC, we obtained a rejection of ASE by 220 times, rejection of the dispersion waves and the pedestal by more than 200 times. The maximum transmission reached 70%.
Dispersion is a quite important parameter in optical fiber systems, mainly in pulsed lasers where the temporal width of the pulses are affected by this factor. There are many interferometric arrangements to evaluate this parameter and generally, these systems vary the wavelength to obtain information about the refractive index dependency n(λ), which is contained in the interferogram phase. However, this makes the system quite slow and it requires tunable light sources with a narrow bandwidth. In this work we propose an alternative method to measure dispersion and we present the results of measurements of special optical fibers, such as microstructured, Er doped, Yb doped, and Er/Yb doped fibers, among others. The experimental arrangement consists of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, where the fiber under test is located in one of its arms while the air is employed as the reference arm. In order to determine the n(λ) dependency, a wide spectrum light source in the wavelength range of interest was used together with an optical spectrum analyzer. The phase information was evaluated from the measured interferogram. The obtained dispersion values were in agreement with those reported by the fabricant and they were used to calibrate the system in order to obtain non reported values.
Optical fiber Q-Switch lasers have been used in a variety of application areas in science as well as in industry owing to their multiple characteristics. A possible application is that owing to their high output power they can be used as pumping sources for supercontinuum generation. Such source can be employed in optical coherence tomography (OCT) focused to dermatology. Therefore it is important to develop sources with emission wavelength that are not injurious to human skin. In the present work erbium doped fiber (EDF) was used owing that its emission wavelength (1550 nm) is adequate for this purpose. The most efficient way of achieving high power in a Q-Switch laser is optimizing all the parameters involved in the pulses generation, such as pumping power, active medium length and modulation frequency. The results show that using a fiber length of 7 meters is possible to get 10 μJ of energy, a peak power of 140 W, an average power of 27.5mW with temporal widths of 500 ns. The laser uses an acousto-optic device to modulate the internal loses inside the cavity. As highly reflecting mirrors, a Sagnac Interferometer and a Fiber Bragg Grating was employed.
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