High-Power Raman Soliton Generation at 1.7 μm in All-Fiber Polarization-Maintaining Erbium-Doped Amplifier

An all-fiber polarization maintaining high-power laser system operating at 1.7 μm based on the Ramaninduced soliton self-frequency shifting effect is demonstrated. The entirely fiberized system is built by erbiumdoped oscillator and two-stage amplifiers with polarization maintaining commercial silica fibers and devices, which can provide robust and stable soliton generation. High-power soliton laser with the average power of 0.28 W,the repetition rate of 42.7 MHz, and pulse duration of 515 fs is generated directly from the main amplifier.Our experiment provides a feasible method for high-power all-fiber polarization maintaining femtosecond laser generation working at 1.7 μm.

Impact of amplified spontaneous emission noise on the SRS threshold of high-power fiber amplifiers

Impact of amplified spontaneous emission(ASE)noise on the stimulated Raman scattering(SRS)threshold of highpower fiber amplifiers is demonstrated numerically through a spectral evolution approach.The simulation results confirm that ASE noise in the Raman wavelength band could reduce the SRS threshold of high-power fiber amplifiers significantly.As for ASE noise originated the main amplifier,it becomes stronger and reduces the SRS threshold at shorter operation wavelength below 1052 nm.As for ASE noise originated from the seed laser,it reduces the SRS threshold at different operation wavelength under the condition that the Raman ratio is over-90 dB in the seed laser.The theoretical method and results in this work could provide a well reference to extend the operation wavelength of high-power fiber lasers.

Thulium-Doped Fiber Amplifier for Blue Light Signal Amplification

Fluoride-based thulium-doped visible light fiber amplifier(TmVLFA), which can be used to amplify the blue light signal for a visible light communication(VLC) system,is theoretically demonstrated for the first time according to the best of our knowledge. The transition rate equations and power propagation equations are solved to predict the dependence of the gain and noise figure on fiber parameters. The numerical results show that with the pump wavelength 1150 nm and pump power 800 mW, 2.75 m long thulium-doped fiber can amplify blue light(480 nm) signal up to 33.3 dB, and the noise figure is in the range from 3.0 to 3.5 dB. The model and numerical results encourage the use of fiber amplifier in VLC system for blue light amplification to extend the range of VLC.

High Power Passive Phase Locking of Four Yb-Doped Fiber Amplifiers by an All-Optical Feedback Loop

We report the passive phase locking of four high power Yb-doped fiber amplifiers with ring cavity.The interference patterns at different output power are observed and the Strehl ratios are measured.The maximum coherent output power of the fiber array is up to 1062 W by multi-stage amplification.The stable beam profiles of various phase relationships are observed by controlling the position of the feedback fiber,in good agreement with the calculated results.By using master oscillator power-amplifier(MOPA)architecture and broadband operation of passively phased systems,higher power scaling with high beam quality appears to be feasible.

Generation and evolution of multiple operation states in passively mode-locked thulium-doped fiber laser by using a graphene-covered-microfiber

Using graphene-covered-microfiber （GCM） as a saturable absorber, the generation and evolution of multiple operation states are proposed and demonstrated in passively mode-locked thulium-doped fiber laser. The microfiber was fabricated using the flame brushing method to an interaction length of - 1.2 cm with a waist diameter of -10 μm. Graphene layers were grown on copper foils by chemical vapor deposition and transferred onto the polydimethylsiloxane （PDMS） to form a PDMS/graphene film, which allowed light-graphene interaction via evanescent field. With the increase of the pump power from 1.25 W to 2.15 W, five different lasing regimes, including continuous-wave, conventional soliton mode-locking, multi- soliton mode-locking, a period of transition, and noise-like mode-locking, were achieved in a fiber ring cavity. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first report of the generation and evolution of multiple operation states by covering graphene on the microfiber in the 2-μ.m region. The results demonstrate that GCM can be a promising method for fabricating all fiber SA, and the switchable operation states can provide more portability in complex application domain.

A theoretical and experimental investigation of an in-band pumped gain-switched thulium-doped fiber laser

In this paper, the theoretical rate equation model of an in-band pumped gain-switched thulium-doped fiber （TDF） laser is investigated. The analytical formulations of pump energy threshold, peak power extraction efficiency, and pulse extraction efficiency are derived through analyzing the interaction process between the pump pulse and the laser pulse. They are useful for understanding, designing, and optimizing the in-band pumped TDF lasers in a 1.9 μm-2.1 μm wavelength region. The experiment with an all-fiber gain-switched TDF laser pumped by a 1.558-μm pulse amplifier is conducted, and our experimental results show good agreement with theoretical analysis.

A Novel and Fast Model of Erbium-doped Fiber Amplifiers

A novel and fast model of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) is presented. By calculating a typical EDFA, numerical results are compared with the results obtained by spectral-solved method. The results of comparison show that such a model can improve the computational speed and preserve the precision. Some characteristics of the EDFA are then analyzed using this model. The results are consistent with those of the experiments.

Performance Enhancement of Praseodymium Doped Fiber Amplifiers

In this paper,we report a simulation study on the performance enhancement of Praseodymium doped silica fiber amplifiers(PDFAs)in O-band(1270-1350 nm)in terms of small signal gain,power conversion efficiency(PCE),and output optical power by employing bidirectional pumping.The PDFA performance is examined by optimizing the length of Praseodymium doped silica fiber(PDF),its mode-field diameter(MFD)and the concentration of Pr^(3+).A small-signal peak gain of 56.4 dB,power conversion efficiency(PCE)of 47%,and output optical power of around 1.6 W(32 dBm)is observed at optimized parameters for input signal wavelength of 1310 nm.Minimum noise figure(NF)of 4.1 dB is observed at input signal wavelength of 1310 nm.Moreover,the effect of varying the pump wavelength and pump power on output optical power of the amplifier and amplified spontaneous emission(ASE)noise is also investigated,respectively.Finally,the impact of ion-ion interaction(up-conversion effect)on small-signal gain of the amplifier is also studied by considering different values of up-conversion coefficient.

Amplified Spontaneous Emission in Single Frequency Double-Clad Fiber Power Amplifiers

Amplified spontaneous emission （ASE） in diode laser pumped double-clad fiber power amplifiers is studied experimentally, The dependences of ASE on fiber length and cross section of active core are discussed and the variations of ASE power as the function of pumping and signal power are investigated. There are indications that long fibers with large mode area need stronger input signals to suppress ASE. It is shown that a 150 mW input signal can suppress the ASE by 40 dB in a 4 m large mode area fiber, while to efficiently suppress the ASE in a 10 m fiber, stronger input signal is needed. 12.5 W and 16.1 W single frequency CW output power are obtained from 4 m fiber and 10 m fiber respectively. No stimulated Brillouin scattering （SBS） was observed

Analysis of gain distribution in cladding-pumped thulium-doped fiber laser and optical feedback inhibition problem in fiber-bulk laser system

The steady-state gain distribution in cladding pumped thulium-doped fiber laser（TDFL） is analytically and numerically solved based on the rate equations including loss coefficients and cross relaxation effect. With the gain curve, a problem, which is named optical feedback inhibition（OFI） and always occurs in tandem TDFL-Ho：YAG laser system, is analyzed quantitatively. The actual characteristics of output spectra and power basically prove the conclusion of theoretical analysis. Then a simple mirror-deflected L-shaped cavity is employed to restrain the external feedback and simplify the structure of fiber-bulk Ho：YAG laser. Finally, 25 W of 2097-nm laser power and 51.2% of optical-to-optical conversion efficiency are obtained, and the beam quality factor is less than 1.43 obtained by knife-edge method.

Theoretical Analysis of Rayleigh Backscattering Noise in Fiber Raman Amplifiers

In this paper, a new theoretical model for Rayleigh backscattering (RB) analysis of fiber Raman amplifiers is proposed. The model includes all the interactions among the pumps, signals, and all orders of RB. The results show that the higher order RB has a negligible influence on the performance of the amplifier. The co-propagating and counterpropagating RB power of the signal grow quadratically with the net-gain of the amplifier. The signal to double Rayleigh backscattering noise ratio (OSNRDRB ) of backward-pumped FRAs is better than that of the forward-pumped ones at high net-gain level (＞ 13 dB), while at low net-gain level the OSNRDrb of the forward-pumped FRAs is slightly better than that of the backward-pumped ones.

Bidirectional Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers

Bidirectional EDFAs(Bi-EDFAs)featuring bidirectional signal input are theoreticallystudied.Gain and noise performances of Bi-EDFAs are analysed numerically and comparedwith that of other optical amplifiers.Applications of Bi-EDFAs in fiber networks and otherfields are considered.

Recent Advances in New Band Rare-earth Doped Fiber Amplifiers

Broadband,high bit rate,long hauls and system intelligence are current trends in developing fiber optic communication systems.The ever-increasing traffic demands have made it urgent to develop new band optical fiber amplifier.Laser characteristics of various rare-earth ion including Er3+,Tm3+,Pr3+,Dy3+,Ho3+,and Nd3+ doped fiber are reviewed.Recent advances of rare-earth doped fiber amplifiers with wide-band and flat gain are also introduced.

Effect of Soliton Propagation in Fiber Amplifiers

The propagation of optical solitons in fiber amplifiers is discussed by considering a model that includes linear high order dispersion, two photon absorption, nonlinear high order dispersion, self induced Ramam and five order nonlinear effects. Based on travelling wave method, the solutions of the nonlinear Schr dinger equations, and the influence on soliton propagation as well as high order effect in the fiber amplifier are discussed in detail. It is found that because of existing five order nonlinear effect, the solution is not of secant hyperbola type, but shows high gain state of the fiber amplifier which is very favourable to the propagation of solitons.

Analytical Studies on 980 nm Pumped Erbium-doped Fiber Amplifiers

Modeled with a three-level-atom appropriate to 980 nm pumped amplifiers,analytical solutions have been deduced for the rate equations of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers.Various key parameters of the amplifiers have been specified.

Coherent beam combining of two all‑PM thulium‑doped fiber chirped pulse amplifiers

In this paper,we report a coherent beam combining(CBC)system that involves two thulium-doped all-polarization maintaining(PM)fiber chirped pulse amplifiers.Through phase-locking the two channels via a fiber stretcher by using the stochastic parallel gradient descent(SPGD)algorithm,a maximum average power of 265 W is obtained,with a CBC efficiency of 81%and a residual phase error of λ/17.After de-chirping by a pair of diffraction gratings,the duration of the combined laser pulse is compressed to 690 fs.Taking into account the compression efficiency of 90%and the main peak energy proportion of 91%,the corresponding peak power is calculated to be 4 MW.The laser noise characteristics before and after CBC are examined,and the results indicate that the CBC would degrade the low frequency relative intensity noise(RIN),of which the integration is 1.74%in[100 Hz,2 MHz]at the maximum combined output power.In addition,the effects of the nonlinear spectrum broadening during chirped pulse amplification on the CBC efficiency are also investigated,showing that a higher extent of pulse stretching is effective in alleviating the spectrum broadening and realizing a higher output power with decent combining efficiency.

Low-modal-crosstalk doped-fiber amplifiers in few-mode-fiber-based systems

Independent light propagation through one or multiple modes is commonly considered as a basic demand for mode manipulation in few-mode fiber(FMF)-or multimode fiber(MMF)-based optical systems such as transmission links,optical fiber lasers,or distributed optical fiber sensors.However,the insertion of doped-fiber amplifiers always kills the entire effort by inducing significant modal crosstalk.In this paper,we propose the design of doped-fiber amplifiers in FMF-based systems adopting identical multiple-ring-core(MRC)index profiles for both passive and doped fibers to achieve low modal crosstalk.We develop the direct-glass-transition(DGT)modified chemical vapor deposition(MCVD)processing for precise fabrication of few-mode erbium-doped fibers(FM-EDFs)with MRC profiles of both refractive index and erbium-ion doping distribution.Then,a few-mode erbium-doped-fiber amplifier(FM-EDFA)with a maximum gain of 26.08 dB and differential modal gain(DMG)of 2.3 dB is realized based on fabricated FM-EDF matched with a transmission FMF supporting four linearly polarized(LP)modes.With the insertion of the FM-EDFA,60+60 km simultaneous LP_(01)∕LP_(11)∕LP_(21)∕LP_(02)transmission without inter-modal multiple-input multiple-output digital signal processing(MIMO-DSP)is successfully demonstrated.The proposed design of low-modal-crosstalk doped-fiber amplifiers provides,to our knowledge,new insights into mode manipulation methods in various applications.

980-nm all-fiber mode-locked Yb-doped phosphate fiber oscillator based on semiconductor saturable absorber mirror and its amplifier

A 980-nm semiconductor saturable absorber mirror（SESAM） mode-locked Yb-doped phosphate fiber laser is demonstrated by using an all-fiber linear cavity configuration. Two different kinds of cavity lengths are introduced into the oscillator to obtain a robust and stable mode-locked seed source. When the cavity length is chosen to be 6 m, the oscillator generates an average output power of 3.5 m W and a pulse width of 76.27 ps with a repetition rate of 17.08 MHz. As the cavity length is optimized to short, 4.4-m W maximum output power and 61.15-ps pulse width are produced at a repetition rate of 20.96 MHz. The output spectrum is centered at 980 nm with a narrow spectral bandwidth of 0.13 nm. In the experiment, no undesired amplified spontaneous emission（ASE） nor harmful oscillation around 1030 nm is observed. Moreover,through a two-stage all-fiber-integrated amplifier, an output power of 740 m W is generated with a pulse width of 200 ps.

Nonlinear compression of picosecond chirped pulse from thin-disk amplifier system through a gas-filled hollow-core fiber

We theoretically study the nonlinear compression of a 20-rnJ, 1030-nm picosecond chirped pulse from the thin-disk amplifier in a krypton gas-filled hollow-core fiber. The chirp from the thin-disk amplifier system has little influence on the initial pulse, however, it shows an effect on the nonlinear compression in hollow-core fiber. We use a large diameter hollow waveguide to restrict undesirable nonlinear effects such as ionization; on the other hand, we employ suitable gas pressure and fiber length to promise enough spectral broadening; with 600-μm, 6-bar （1 bar = 105 Pa）, 1.8-m hollow fiber, we obtain 31.5-fs pulse. Moreover, we calculate and discuss the optimal fiber lengths and gas pressures with different initial durations induced by different grating compression angles for reaching a given bandwidth. These results are meaningful for a compression scheme from picoseconds to femtoseconds.

A Temperature-Insensitive Amplified Spontaneous Emission Broadband Source Based on Er-Doped Fiber

To obtain a stable amplified spontaneous emission（ASE） source for complex environment applications, we design an ASE source and study the output power and spectral characteristics under different ambient temperatures.We optimize the structure of the ASE source to flatten the ASE spectrum, and study the output characteristics in terms of output power and optical spectrum under different pump powers. Then the performance of the ASE source is investigated in the temperature range from-18.9°C to 50°C. A stable-power and flat-spectrum ASE source can be obtained by structural optimization and pump control.