Wideband All-Polarization-Maintaining Yb-Doped Mode-Locked Fiber Laser Using a Nonlinear Optical Loop Mirror

We report on a wide-band and stable mode-locked all-polarization-maintaining fiber laser configuration using a nonlinear optical loop mirror. The central wavelength of the laser is 1080.14nm and the 3dB bandwidth is 20.29nm. The repetition rate of the pulse is 3.28 MHz and the pulse width is 848ps. By tuning the pump power, which is centered at 980nrn, from 300mW to 380mW, we obtain a linearly changed output power from 6row to 7.12roW. The all-polarization-mMntaining fiber configuration is fundamental to the stability of the output power.

Effects of Higher-order Dispersion on Time Delay in Femtosecond Pulse Generated from a Nonlinear Optical Loop Mirror Constructed from Dispersion Decreasing Fiber

The time delay（TD） of femtoseeond pulses is studied for the first time, which generated from the nonlinear optical loop mirror composed of dispersion decreasing fiber（DDF-NOLM）. The results show that the higher-order dispersion and high order nonlinearities such as Raman frequency shift play a key role in producing TD, and that the time delay ean be suppressed by the third-order dispersion（TOD） in DDF-NOLM. The mechanism of the time delay suppression is also discussed in detail.

Gigahertz frequency hopping in an optical phase-locked loop for Raman lasers

Raman lasers are essential in atomic physics,and the development of portable devices has posed requirements for time-division multiplexing of Raman lasers.We demonstrate an innovative gigahertz frequency hopping approach of a slave Raman laser within an optical phase-locked loop(OPLL),which finds practical application in an atomic gravimeter,where the OPLL frequently switches between near-resonance lasers and significantly detuned Raman lasers.The method merges the advantages of rapid and extensive frequency hopping with the OPLL’s inherent low phase noise,and exhibits a versatile range of applications in compact laser systems,promising advancements in portable instruments.

All-polarization-maintaining figure-eight Er-fiber ultrafast laser with a bidirectional output coupler in the loss-imbalanced nonlinear optical loop mirror

In this Letter, we report on a novel architecture for a self-starting mode-locked figure-eight erbium-doped fiber laser using a loss-imbalanced nonlinear optical loop mirror(NOLM) with a bidirectional output coupler. An allpolarization-maintaining structure is adopted. A 2 × 2 optical coupler with a splitting ratio of 50:50 is used at the junction to form an NOLM. Another coupler with a splitting ratio of 10:90 is introduced at one end of the fiber loop. The 10:90 coupler plays two roles: power attenuator and bidirectional output coupler. This architecture can achieve both large modulation depth and good self-starting ability simultaneously. With this architecture,the self-starting mode-locking operation is achieved easily with pump power above the threshold. The clockwise and counter-clockwise mode-locked output powers are 10.1 and 10.3 mW, respectively, with the repetition rate of 3.63 MHz. The spectral bandwidths of the clockwise and counter-clockwise mode-locked output pulses are 7.4 and 2.9 nm, and the corresponding pulse widths of the direct outputs are 530.6 fs and 1.55 ps, respectively.

Study of the output characteristics of nonlinear optical loop mirror on an erbium-doped mode-locked fiber laser

We experimentally discussed the output characteristics of a passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser using a single-mode fiber(SMF)structure as a saturable absorber(SA)based on nonlinear optic loop mirror(NOLM).The NOLM acting as an SA has properties of controllable pulse interval and pulse width.Four different types of NOLMs are experimentally discussed and the results show that fine adjustment to the coupler ratio together with optimization of the SMF length inside the NOLM can simultaneously implement high pulse energy and pulse internal tunability.The laser configuration provides a method to generate well-performing mode-locked lasing,and the investigations of the effects of changing some parameters of the laser also provide some help for the development of mode-locked fiber laser based on NOLM.

2μm noise-like mode-locked fiber laser based on nonlinear optical loop mirror

We report a Tm-doped noise-like mode-locked(NLML)pulsed fiber laser with a compact linear cavity which consists of dual nonlinear optical loop mirrors(NOLMs).The design of dual-NOLM shows both exceptional compactness in construction and distinct flexibility.In this laser,mode-locking can be realized through the nonlinear optical loop mirror technique.Stable noise-like mode-locked pulses with spectral bandwidth of 29.18 nm and pulse energy of 46 nJ are generated at a central wavelength of 1999.7 nm.Our results indicate that such a simple and inexpensive structure can pave the way for the development of generating supercontinuum with desirable performance.

Dynamic Free-Spectral-Range Measurement for Fiber Resonator Based on Digital-Heterodyne Optical Phase-Locked Loop

We propose a novel scheme, based on digital-heterodyne optical phase-locked loop with whole-fiber circuit, to dynamically measure the free-spectral-range of a fiber resonator. The optical phase-locked loop is established with a differential frequency-modulation module consists of a pair of acousto-optic modulators. The resonance-tracking loop is derived with the Pound-Drever-Hall technique for locking the heterodyne frequency of the OPLL on the frequency difference between adjacent resonance modes. A stable locking accuracy of about 7 × 10?9 and a dynamic locking accuracy of about 5 × 10?8 are achieved with the FSR of 8.155 MHz, indicating a bias stability of the resonator fiber optic gyro of about 0.1?/h with 10 Hz bandwidth. In addition, the thermal drift coefficient of the FSR is measured as 0.1 Hz/?C. This shows remarkable potential for realizing advanced optical measurement systems, such as the resonant fiber optic gyro, and so on.

Simple and robust method for rapid cooling of 87Rb to quantum degeneracy

We demonstrate a simple and fast way to produce 87Rb Bose–Einstein condensates. A digital optical phase lock loop(OPLL) board is introduced to lock and adjust the frequency of the trap laser, which simplifies the optical design and improves the experimental efficiency. We collect atoms in a magneto-optical trap, then compress the cloud and cut off hot atoms by rf knife in a magnetic quadrupole trap. The atom clouds are then transferred into a spatially mode-matched optical dipole trap by lowering the quadrupole field gradient. Our system reliably produces a condensate with 2 × 106 atoms every7.5 s. The compact optical design and rapid preparation speed of our system will open the gate for mobile quantum sensing.

Optical Generation of mm-Wave Signal Through Optoelectronic Phase-Locked Loop

In this paper, we propose a scheme for the generation of low phase noise tunable mm-wave signal by bearing two lightwaves in a photodiode. These two lightwaves are made phase coherent by an optoelectronic phase locked loop. Calculated mm-wave power at a frequency of 60 GHz is found to be -4 dBm.

Research of Homodyne Optical Fiber Communication System and Associated Technologies

Because it has the advantages of high sensitivity, and it is easy to demodulate and convenient to select in FDM system, the coherent optical fiber communication system is much suitable to be used in long distance optical communication systems and in optical fiber WANs. There are two major patterns in coherent optical fiber communication: heterodyne and homodyne. Compared with the heterodyne scheme, the homodyne optical fiber communication system has the following advantages: (1) The sensitivity of the homodyne receiver is higher than that of the heterodyne receiver. As we know, the PSK homodyne optical fiber communication system has the highest sensitivity in coherent optical fiber communication systems. So it is much suitable to be used in long distance optical communication systems or in FDM systems. (2) Because the homodyne receiver only uses the baseband to demodulate the transmitted signals, it occupies much narrower frequency domain than the heterodyne receiver does, which makes it more suitable to be used in multichannel systems. (3) The demodulation pattern used in homodyne receiver is much easier than that used in the heterodyne receiver, since it only needs the baseband demodulation. Usually we construct a homodyne receiver with an optical phase locked loop (OPLL). The research of the OPLL began at 1960′s and the study of the homodyne receiver has been made gradually. In 1984, the first homodyne optical fiber communication system was demonstrated in BTRL, in which the signal laser and the local laser were all 1.5 μm He Ne gas lasers, and the OPLL used was a balanced one. In 1989, L.G.Kazovsky demonstrated experimentally a homodyne receiver in Bellcore using two 1.3 μm Nd:YAG lasers as the signal laser and the local laser and also using a balanced OPLL. Because the linewidth of the normal semiconductor laser is too large and its frequency stability is much poorer, it is very difficult to construct a homodyne receiver with the semiconductor lasers. At the end of 1989, the first Dissertation completed Jul. 1992homodyne optical fiber communication system using two 1.5 μm external cavity semiconductor lasers as the signal laser and the local laser, respectively, was finished in AT&T Bell Lab by J. M. Kahn, in which the OPLL was also a balanced one. In China, the research of the homodyne optical fiber communication system was funded by the National Seventh Five Year Program and by the National Natural Science Foundation. The difficulties to construct a homodyne optical fiber communication system are listed as follows: (1) In homodyne communication systems, the signal laser′s frequency should be stable to avoid the penalty of the receiver′s BER and the crosstalk to other channels in a FDM system, and the local laser could be tuned widely and easily to cover all the signal lasers′ frequency domain. Both the signal laser and the local laser should be narrow in linewidth to decrease the influence of the laser′s phase noise on the BER of the receiver. (2) The modulation pattern used should be studied and chosen carefully because the requirements of different kinds of modulation on the laser, the receiver and the channel are different. (3) Since the construction of the linear OPLL (the balanced) and the nonlinear OPLL (the Costas OPLL, or the Decision Driven OPLL) are rather different, their requirements on the linewidths of the lasers are different too, we should study the theory and the construction of the OPLL carefully to select the suitable scheme to realize. (4) In a multichannel system (such as a FDM system), the influence of crosstalk between channels on the homodyne system should be researched carefully. The technology used to stabilize the channel interval should also be studied. In this thesis, the homodyne optical fiber communication system has been theoretically analyzed, the technical difficulties of constructing the system have been studied. Several kinds of external cavity semiconductor laser have been researched experimentally. Compared

Direct phase control method for binary phase-shift keying space coherent laser communication

An optical phase locking method based on direct phase control is proposed.The core of this method is to synchronize the carrier by directly changing the phase of the local beam.The corresponding experimental device and the supporting algorithm were configured to verify the feasibility of this method.Phase locking can be completed without cycle skipping,and the acquisition time is 530 ns.Without an optical preamplifier,a sensitivity of-34.4 d Bm is obtained,and the bit error rate is 10^(-9) for 2.5 Gbit/s binary phase-shift keying modulation.The measured standard deviation of the phase error is 5.2805°.

Recent advances in microwave photonics

Microwave photonics （MWP） is an interdisci- plinary field that combines two different areas of microwave engineering and photonics. It has several key features by transferring signals between the optical domain and microwave domain, which leads to the advantages of broad operation bandwidth for generation, processing and distribution of microwave signals and high resolution for optical spectrum measurement. In this paper, we comprehensively review past and current status of MWP in China by introducing the representative works from most of the active MWP research groups. Future prospective is also discussed fi＇om the national strategy to key enabling technology that we have developed.