The 260-W coherent beam combining of two compact fibre amplifier chains

Coherent beam combining of two fibre amplifier chains with a total power of 260 W in a compact system using the stochastic parallel gradient descent （SPGD） algorithm is demonstrated. A 150 MHz linewidth fibre laser is built and introduced for high-power amplification to mitigate stimulated Brillouin scattering （SBS）. Compact high-power amplifier chains are built with low power all-fibre system and high-power bulk free-optics fibre amplifiers. When the total power is about 260 W, active phase-locking of two high-power amplifiers is demonstrated using the SPGD algorithm. In closed-loop, the power in the main lobe increases 1.68 times, the visibility is increased from 0 to 0.62, and the phase residual error is less than λ/10.

Higher-order effects on self-similar parabolic pulse in the microstructured fibre amplifier

By considering higher-order effects, the properties of self-similar parabolic pulses propagating in the microstructured fibre amplifier with a normal group-velocity dispersion have been investigated. The numerical results indicate that the higher-order effects can badly distort self-similar parabolic pulse shape and optical spectrum, and at the same time the peak shift and oscillation appear, while the pulse still reveals highly linear chirp but grows into asymmetry. The influence of different higher-order effects on self-similar parabolic pulse propagation has been analysed. It shows that the self-steepening plays a more important role. We can manipulate the geometrical parameters of the microstructured fibre amplifier to gain a suitable dispersion and nonlinearity coefficient which will keep high-quality self-similar parabolic pulse propagation. These results are significant for the further study of self-similar parabolic pulse propagation.

High power tandem pumping fibre amplifier

We demonstrate a high efficiency 1083 nm fibre amplifier tandem pumped by a 1030 nm fibre laser. The 1030 nm fibre laser is coupled into a 25 m long single clad ytterbium doped fibre via a high power wave division multiplexer to core pump the 1083 nm signal laser. An output power of 4.5 W and a power conversion efficiency of 76.6% are achieved without power-roll. The performance of the amplifier can be improved by optimizing the gain fibre length.

10-Gb/s Transmission in WDM PON Employing Reflective Semiconductor Optical Amplifier and Fibre Bragg Grating Equaliser

We propose a 10-Gb/s Wavelength- Division-Multiplexed Passive Optical Network （WDM-PON） scheme with upstream transmi- ssion employing Reflective Semiconductor Op- tical Amplifier （RSOA） and Fibre Bragg Gra- ting （FBG） optical equaliser. Transmissions of 10-Gb/s non return-to-zero signals using a 1.2- GHz RSOA and FBG optical equaliser with different setups are demonstrated. Significant performance improvement and 40-kin standard single mode fibre transmission are achieved using FBG optical equaliser and Remotely Pum- ped Erbium-Doped Fibre Amplifier （RP-EDFA）, where they are used to equalise the output of the band-limited RSOA and amplify the seed light and upstream signal, respectively.

Generation of 207-femtosecond pulses from a ytterbium figure-of-eight fibre laser

We report the generation of 207-fs pulses with 1.2 mW average power at 1036 nm directly from a passively modelocked Yb-doped fibre laser with a nonlinear optical loop mirror for mode-locking and pairs of diffraction gratings for intracavity dispersion compensation. These results imply a 4-fold reduction in pulse duration over previously reported figure-of-eight cavity passively mode-locked Yb-doped fibre lasers. Stable pulse trains are produced at the fundamental repetition rate of the resonator, 24.0 MHz. On the other hand, this laser offers a cleaner spectrum and greater stability and is completely self-starting.

Yb-doped large-pitch fibres: effective single-mode operation based on higher-order mode delocalisation

Rare earth-doped fibres are a diode-pumped,solid-state laser architecture that is highly scalable in average power.The performance of pulsed fibre laser systems is restricted due to nonlinear effects.Hence,fibre designs that allow for very large mode areas at high average powers with diffraction-limited beam quality are of enormous interest.Ytterbium-doped,rod-type,large-pitch fibres(LPF)enable extreme fibre dimensions,i.e.,effective single-mode fibres with mode sizes exceeding 100 times the wavelength of the guided radiation,by exploiting the novel concept of delocalisation of higher-order transverse modes.The non-resonant nature of the operating principle makes LPF suitable for high power extraction.This design allows for an unparalleled level of performance in pulsed fibre lasers.

Multi-scale polarisation phenomena

Multi-scale methods that separate different time or spatial scales are among the most powerful techniques in physics,especially in applications that study nonlinear systems with noise.When the time scales(noise and perturbation)are of the same order,the scales separation becomes impossible.Thus,the multi-scale approach has to be modified to characterise a variety of noise-induced phenomena.Here,based on stochastic modelling and analytical study,we demonstrate in terms of the fluctuation-induced phenomena and Hurst R/S analysis metrics that the matching scales of random birefringence and pump–signal states of polarisation interaction in a fibre Raman amplifier results in a new random birefringence-mediated phenomenon,which is similar to stochastic anti-resonance.The observed phenomenon,apart from the fundamental interest,provides a base for advancing multi-scale methods with application to different coupled nonlinear systems ranging from lasers(multimode,mode-locked,random,etc.)to nanostructures(light-mediated conformation of molecules and chemical reactions,Brownian motors,etc.).