Design and fabrication of Panda-type erbium-doped polarization-maintaining fibres

To obtain the stable operation of erbium-doped fibre laser, the simple and ideal technology is adopted by use of the erbium doped polarization maintaining fibre （EDPMF）. The design criteria of the Panda-type EDPMF are presented, which take into account the cutoff wavelength, mode field diameter, modal birefringence and background loss. Four groups of optimum structural paramcter combinations are determined in terms of the design criteria. Two kinds of the Panda-type EDPMFs are selected to be fabricated. The fabrication process and the parameter control of the Panda-type EDPMFs are presented in detail. Their refractive index profiles, birefringence and absorption spectra are experimentally investigated. The absorption coefficient of the EDPMF, whose core is co-doped with Bi, Ga, A1 and Ge, is about 57.9dB/m at 1.53μm. Co-doping Bi, Ga and A1 can greatly increase the erbium concentration in the silica-based fibre. The high birefringence is obtained for the Panda-type EDPMF. The group birefringence of the EDPMF, whose outer cladding diameter is 125 μm, is about 4.8 × 10%^-4.

A twist sensor based on polarization-maintaining fibers with different cladding diameters

A fiber twist sensor using a Sagnac interferometer incorporating a tapered polarization-maintaining fiber(PMF)is proposed.The transmission properties of the sensor are investigated both theoretically and experimentally.Given the optoelastic effect,which depends on fiber geometry,the modal and group birefringences of the PMF can be controlled by applying different twist angles.The spectral wavelength shifts,free spectral ranges,and transmission losses of the original,microtapered,and etched PMFs were compared.Notably,the interference dips for the etched PMF move in opposite directions.As a result,the proposed PMF-based sensor could have multiparameter sensing applications.

Pulse generation in Yb-doped polarization-maintaining fiber laser by nonlinear polarization evolution

We demonstrate a self-started,long-term stable polarization-maintaining mode-locked fiber laser based on the nonlinear polarization evolution technique.A polarized beam splitter is inserted into the cavity of the linear polarizationmaintaining fiber laser to facilitate self-started mode-locking.Pulses with single pulse energy of 26.9 nJ and average output power of 73.9 mW are obtained at the pump power of 600 mW.The transmission characteristics of artificial saturable absorber used in this laser are analyzed theoretically,the influence of the half-wave plate state on mode-locking is discussed,and the mode-locking range is obtained,which is well consistent with the experimental results.

Linearly Polarized Polarization-Maintaining Er^(3+)-Doped Fluoride Fiber Laser in the Mid-Infrared

We demonstrated the~2.8-μm and~3.5-μm linearly polarized continuous wave(CW)laser outputs from a polarization-maintaining(PM)Er^(3+)-doped fluoride fiber laser.By introducing a film polarizer into the cavity to select the laser polarization orientation,the~2.8-μm linearly polarized CW laser with a high polarization extinction ratio(PER)of~23 dB and maximum output power of 2.37 W was achieved under double-end pumping at 976 nm.By adding another 1981-nm pump source simultaneously,the~3.5-μm linearly polarized CW laser was also obtained,giving higher PER of~27 dB and maximum output power of 307 mW which is only limited by the available power of 1981-nm pump.To the best of our knowledge,this is the first report on a mid-infrared linearly polarized CW PM fiber laser in the>2.5-μm mid-infrared region.This work not only opens up opportunities for some new mid-infrared applications,but also provides a promising platform for developing high-stability and versatile mid-infrared laser sources.

Low-noise compact fiber laser based on nonlinear polarization evolution in an all-polarization-maintaining figure-8 cavity

We demonstrate an all-polarization-maintaining(APM)fiber mode-locked laser based on nonlinear polarization evolution(NPE).A well-designed Sagnac fiber loop is employed to establish the nonlinear polarization evolution process in a polarization beam splitter(PBS)figure-8 fiber laser.Nonlinear loss curves are calculated to verify the saturable absorption characteristic of this NPE-based APM oscillator.Then,we simulate the pulse propagation process in the cavity to demonstrate the pulse mode-locked formation.Finally,we also design a realizable compact scheme to further reduce noise disturbances,achieving a 101-fs mode-locked pulse train with a 0.3-mrad integrated phase noise and a 0.006%integrated relative intensity noise(RIN).This figure-8 fiber laser provides a new scheme for compacting low-noise compact APM fiber lasers based on the NPE mode-locked mechanism.

Polarization-maintaining few mode fiber composed of a central circular-hole and an elliptical-ring core

We propose a novel waveguide design of polarization-maintaining few mode fiber(PM-FMF) supporting ≥10non-degenerate modes, utilizing a central circular air hole and a circumjacent elliptical-ring core. The structure endows a new degree of freedom to adjust the birefringence of all the guided modes, including the fundamental polarization mode. Numerical simulations demonstrate that, by optimizing the air hole and elliptical-ring core,a PM-FMF supporting 10 distinctive polarization modes has been achieved, and the effective index difference Δn_(eff) between the adjacent guided modes could be kept larger than 1.32 × 10^(-4) over the whole C +L band. The proposed fiber structure can flexibly tailored to support an even larger number of modes in PM-FMF(14-mode PM-FMF has been demonstrated as an example), which can be readily applicable to a scalable mode division multiplexing system.

Design of PANDA ring-core fiber with 10 polarization-maintaining modes

We present a polarization-maintaining PANDA ring-core fiber(PM-PRCF) characterized by the combination of a ring-core structure with two stress-applying rods. This special fiber design separates the adjacent modes and avoids the cutoff of the higher-order modes, which is a common problem in elliptical core polarization-maintaining few-mode fibers. Using a high-contrast index ring and stress-induced birefringence, the PM-PRCF features support for 10 vector modes, with effective refractive index separations from their adjacent modes >10^(-4).Broadband performance is investigated subsequently over a wide wavelength range from 1500 to 1630 nm.The proposed fiber is targeted at applications in space-division multiplexing while eliminating the complex multiple-input multiple-output signal processing.

Electro-Optical Effect Measurement of Thin-Film Material Using PM Fiber Mach-Zehnder Interferometer

A polarization-maintaining （PM） fiber Mach-Zehnder （MZ） interferometer has been established to measure the EO effect of very thin film materials with optical anisotropy. Unlike a common MZ interferometer, all the components are connected via polarization-maintaining fibers. At the same time, a polarized DFB laser with a maximum power output of 10mW is adopted as the light source to induce a large extinction ratio. Here,we take it to determine the electro-optical coefficients of a very thin superlattice structure with GaAs, KTP, and GaN as comparative samples. The measured EO coefficients show good comparability with the others.

Generation of cavity-birefringence-dependent multi-wavelength bright-dark pulse pair in a figure-eight thulium-doped fiber laser

We experimentally demonstrated a stable multi-wavelength bright-dark pulse pair in a mode-locked thulium-doped fiber laser(TDFL).The nonlinear polarization rotation(NPR)and nonlinear optical loop mirror(NOLM)were employed in a figure-eight cavity to allow for multi-wavelength mode-locking operation.By incorporating different lengths of high birefringence polarization-maintaining fiber(PMF),the fiber laser could operate stably in a multi-wavelength emission state.Compared with the absence of the PMF,the birefringence effect caused by PMF resulted in rich multi-wavelength optical spectra and better intensity symmetry and stability of the bright-dark pulse pair.

Self-starting all-fiber PM Er:laser mode locked by a biased nonlinear amplifying loop mirror

A compact all-fiber polarization-maintaining Er:laser using a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror is reported. Fundamental single-pulse mode-locking operation can always self start, with a cavity round-trip decreased from ~ 4.7 m to~ 1.7 m. When the pulse repetition rate is 121.0328 MHz, output pulse is measured to have a center wavelength/3-d B spectral bandwidth/radio frequency signal to noise ratio(SNR)/pulse width of 1571.65 nm/18.70 nm/80 d B/477 fs, respectively. Besides, three states including the exponential growth, damping state, and steady state are investigated through the build-up process both experimentally and numerically. Excellent stability of this compact Er:laser is further evaluated,demonstrating that it can be an easy-fabrication maintenance-free ultrafast candidate for the scientific area of this kind.

Temperature dependence of birefringence in olarization-maintaining photonic crystal fibres

In this paper,the temperature dependence of birefringence in polarization maintaining photonic crystal fibres（PMPCFs） is investigated theoretically and experimentally.Utilizing the structural parameters of the PM-PCF samples in the experiment,two effects leading to the birefringence variation under different temperatures are analysed,which are the thermal expansion of silica material and the refractive index variation due to the temperature variation.The actual birefringence variation of the PM-PCF is the combination of the two effects,which is in the order of 10-9 K-1 for both fibre samples.Calculation results also show that the influence of refractive index variation is the dominant contribution,which determines the tendency of the fibre birefringence variation with varying temperature.Then,the birefringence beat lengths of the two fibre samples are measured under the temperature,which varies from -40℃ to 80℃.A traditional PANDA-type polarization maintaining fibre（PMF） is also measured in the same way for comparison.The experimental results indicate that the birefringence variation of the PM-PCF due to temperature variation is far smaller than that of the traditional PMF,which agrees with the theoretical analysis.The ultra-low temperature dependence of the birefringence in the PM-PCF has great potential applications in temperature-insensitive fibre interferometers,fibre sensors,and fibre gyroscopes.

A kind of multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser based on Lyot filter

A multiwavelength tunable ring-cavity erbium-doped fiber laser(EDFL)based on a Lyot filter was presented.For the proposed Lyot filter,a comb filter consisting of an EDF-polarization-maintaining fiber(EDF-PMF),a polarization controller(PC),and a circulator with four ports was used to suppress the mode competition.The light transmission direction was guaranteed by the circulator.For the proposed fiber laser,tunable single,dual,triple,quadruple,quintuple,sextuple,and septuple wavelengths were realized.A single-wavelength laser output with an optical signal-to-noise ratio(SNR)of up to30.56 dB was realized,and a tuning range of 1590.54 nm to 1599.54 nm was achieved by tuning the PC.The stability of the single,dual,triple,and quadruple-wavelength center power fluctuations was less than 0.05 dB,0.98 dB,5.07 dB,and7.71 dB respectively.When the laser was operated in the multiwavelength condition,the SNR was more than 20.97 dB.The proposed erbium-doped fiber laser is suitable for fiber-sensing system applications.

Polarization-maintained coupled optoelectronic oscillator incorporating an unpumped erbium-doped fiber

A polarization-maintained coupled optoelectronic oscillator（COEO） with its performance significantly improved by a short-length unpumped erbium-doped fiber（EDF） is reported and experimentally investigated.A 10 GHz optical pulse train with a supermode suppression ratio of 61.8 d B and a 10 GHz radio frequency signal with a sidemode suppression ratio of 94 d B and a phase noise of-121.9 d Bc∕Hz at 10 k Hz offset are simultaneously generated. Thanks to saturable absorption of the 1 m unpumped EDF, which introduces relatively large cavity loss to the undesired modes and noise, the supermode suppression ratio and the phase noise are improved by 9.4 and 7.9 d B, respectively.

High pulse energy fiber/solid-slab hybrid picosecond pulse system for material processing on polycrystalline diamonds

We demonstrate an all polarization-maintaining(PM) fiber mode-locked laser seeded, hybrid fiber/solid-slab picosecond pulse laser system which outputs 40 μJ, 10 ps pulses at the central wavelength of 1064 nm. The beam quality factors M2 in the unstable and stable directions are 1.35 and 1.31, respectively. 15 μJ picosecond pulses at the central wavelength of 355 nm are generated through third harmonic generation(THG) by using two Li B3 O5(LBO) crystals, in order to get better processing efficiency on polycrystalline diamonds. The high pulse energy and beam quality of these ultraviolet(UV) picosecond pulses are confirmed by latter experiments of material processing on polycrystalline diamonds. This scheme which combines the advantages of the all PM fiber mode-locked laser and the solid-slab amplifier enables compact, robust and chirped pulse amplification-free amplification with high power picosecond pulses.

Four-quadrant demodulation fiber sensor for wavelength monitoring of a wavelength phase-shifting interferometer

Real-time monitoring of wavelength is important for high-speed wavelength phase-shifting interferometry.In this paper,a wavelength sensor based on a polarization-maintaining fiber interferometer with four-quadrant demodulation was proposed.We built the wavelength sensing system with resolution better than 0.005 pm and 0.1 ms sampling interval and measured the response time of the tuned wavelength at 35 ms in the phase-shifting process of a commercial wavelength phase-shifting free-space interferometer,as well as the wavelength drift velocity of 0.01 pm per second in the hysteresis process.The optical fiber wavelength sensor with four-quadrant demodulation provides a real-time wavelength sensing scheme for high-speed wavelength phase-shifting interferometers.

Tunable Fiber Ring Laser Employing a Sagnac Interferometric Filter

A tunable erbium-doped fiber ring laser employing an all-polarization-maintaining fiber loop filter with certain birefringence is proposed and demonstrated. The lasing frequencies can be selected by properly adjusting the polarization controller in the cavity.