Influence of laser linewidth on performance of Brillouin optical time domain reflectometry

The effects of optical sources with different laser linewidths on Brillouin optical time domain reflectometry （BOTDR） are investigated numerically and experimentally. Simulation results show that the spectral linewidth of spontaneous Brillouin scattering remains almost constant when the laser linewidth is less than 1 MHz at the same pulse width; otherwise, it increases sharply. A comparison between a fiber laser （FL） with 4-kHz linewidth at 3 dB and a distributed feedback （DFB） laser with 3-MHz linewidth is made experimentally. When a constant laser power is launched into the sensing fiber, the fitting linewidths of the beat signals （backscattered Brillouin light and local oscillator （LO）） is about 5 MHz wider for the DFB laser than for the FL and the intensity of the beat signal is about a half. Furthermore, the frequency fluctuation in the long sensing fiber is lower for the FL source, yielding about 2 MHz less than that of the DFB laser, indicating higher temperature/strain resolution. The experimental results are in good agreement with the numerical simulations.

Two-hertz-linewidth Nd:YAG lasers at 1064 nm stabilized to vertically mounted ultra-stable cavities

Two Nd：YAG lasers operating at 1064 nm are separately servo-locked to two vertically mounted ultra-stable cavities. The optical heterodyne beat between two cavity-stabilized lasers shows that the linewidth of each laser reaches 2 Hz and the average frequency drift reduces to less than 1 Hz/s.

Influences of semiconductor laser on fibre-optic distributed disturbance sensor based on Mach-Zehnder interferometer

This paper investigates the influences of a semiconductor laser with narrow linewidth on a fibre-optic distributed disturbance sensor based on Mach-Zehnder interferometer. It establishes an effective numerical model to describe the noises and linewidth of a semiconductor laser, taking into account their correlations. Simulation shows that frequency noise has great influences on location errors and their relationship is numerically investigated. Accordingly, there is need to determine the linewidth of the laser less than a threshold and obtain the least location errors. Furthermore, experiments are performed by a sensor prototype using three semiconductor lasers with different linewidths, respectively, with polarization maintaining optical fibres and couplers to eliminate the polarization induced noises and fading. The agreement of simulation with experimental results means that the proposed numerical model can make a comprehensive description of the noise behaviour of a semiconductor laser. The conclusion is useful for choosing a laser source for fibre-optic distributed disturbance sensor to achieve optimized location accuracy. What is more, the proposed numerical model can be widely used for analysing influences of semiconductor lasers on other sensing, communication and optical signal processing systems.

Transportable 1555-nm Ultra-Stable Laser with Sub-0.185-Hz Linewidth

We present two cavity-stabilized lasers at 1555 nm, which are built to be the frequency source for a transportable photonic microwave generation system. The frequency instability reaches the thermal noise limit （7 ×10-16） of the 10-cm ultra-low expansion glass cavity at 1-10s averaging time and the beat signal of the two lasers reveals a remarkable linewidth of 185mHz.

Influence of laser linewidth on external-cavity frequency doubling efficiency of a 1.56 μm master oscillator fiber power amplifier

By using an external-cavity frequency-doubling master oscillator fiber power amplifier （MOPA）, a 700 mW continuous-wave single-frequency laser source at 780 nm is produced. It is shown that the frequency doubling efficiency is improved when the seed diode laser is optically locked to a resonant frequency of a confocal Fabry-Perot （F-P） cavity. This phenomenon can be attributed to the narrowing of the 1.56 μm laser linewidth and explained by our presented theoretical model. The experimental results are found to be in good agreement with the theoretical predictions.

Coherent Parameter Measurement Based on Partial Coherent Envelope Demodulation

The key parameters of laser energy concentration and coherence can be characterized by laser linewidth, which determines the detection range, measurement resolution and signal-to-noise ratio of laser precision measurement technology. Up to now, the laser linewidth is mainly measured by the energy distribution width in the frequency domain, but the coherence of the laser has not been measured or characterized directly. In this work, we propose the concept of coherent linewidth based on the coherent envelope of delayed self-heterodyne detection to directly characterize the time-frequency coherence of lasers. In the proof-of-concept experiment, we obtain the coherence coefficient through the Fourier transform of the partial coherence envelope, and then measure the coherence linewidth of the laser. The measured coherent linewidth is smaller than the traditional integral linewidth and larger than the intrinsic Lorentzian linewidth, indicating that the coherent linewidth is less affected by low-frequency 1/f noise. The concept of coherent linewidth proposed in this article can serve as a candidate method for directly characterizing the coherence of narrow linewidth lasers. .

Power output correction model of narrow linewidth ring fiber laser filtered with whispering gallery mode resonator

A whispering gallery mode resonator(WGMR)filter can narrow laser linewidth while significantly changing the output power characteristics of fiber laser system.It is found that traditional laser output power model is invalid.We report a correction model of a narrow linewidth fiber laser filtered with a WGMR to analyze its power.We believe that the loss of the laser system and the threshold gain increase caused by the WGMR filter lead to the predominate amplified spontaneous emission during the original laser period.According to that,we assume the correction coefficient is an exponential decay related to the Er-doped fiber length in the large loss situation,and we verify it experimentally.As a result,the correction model is valid for WGMR-filtered fiber laser.

Coherence transfer from 1064 nm to 578 nm using an optically referenced frequency comb

A laser at 578 nm is phase-locked to an optical frequency comb（OFC） which is optically referenced to a subhertzlinewidth laser at 1064 nm. Coherence is transferred from 1064 nm to 578 nm via the OFC. By comparing with a cavitystabilized laser at 578 nm, the absolute linewidth of 1.1 Hz and the fractional frequency instability of 1.3 × 10^-15 at an averaging time of 1 s for each laser at 578 nm have been determined, which is limited by the performance of the reference laser for the OFC.

Low-Drift Closed-Loop Fiber Optic Gyroscope of High Scale Factor Stability Driven by Laser With External Phase Modulation

In view of the poor scale factor stability of the interferometric fiber optic gyroscope(IFOG),it is a creative method to use laser to drive the IFOG for its better frequency stabilization characteristics instead of the broadband light source.As the linewidth of laser is narrow,the errors of coherent backscattering,polarization coupling,and Kerr effect are reintroduced which cause more noise and drift.This paper studies laser spectrum broadening based on external phase modulation of Gaussian white noise(GWN).The theoretical analysis and test results indicate that this method has a good effect on spectrum broadening and can be used to improve the performance of the laser-driven IFOG.In the established closed-loop IFOG,a four-state modulation(FSM)is adopted to avoid temperature instability of the multifunction integrated-optic chip(MIOC)and drift caused by the electronic circuit in demodulation.The experimental results show that the IFOG driven by broadened laser has the angular random walk noise of 0.0038°/√h and the drift of 0.017°/h,which are 62%and 66%better than those without modulation respectively,of which the drift has reached the level of the broadband light source.Although the noise still needs further reduction,its scale factor stability is 0.38 ppm,which has an overwhelming advantage compared with the traditional IFOG.

Multi-Wavelength Narrow Linewidth Fiber Laser Based on Distributed Feedback Fiber Lasers

A narrow linewidth laser configuration based on distributed feedback fiber lasers （DFB-FL） with eight wavelengths in the international telecommunication union （ITU） grid is presented and realized. In this laser configuration, eight phase-shifted gratings in series are bidirectionally pumped by two 980-nm laser diodes （LDs）. The final laser output with over 10-mW power for each wavelength can be obtained, and the maximum power difference within eight wavelengths is 1.2 dB. The laser configuration with multiple wavelengths and uniform power outputs can be very useful in large scaled optical fiber hydrophone fields.