Hybrid Fiber Optical Bistability and Optical Signal Processing

A hybrid fiber optical bistable device with electrical feedback has been proposed and analyzed.Bistability operation and some applications for optical signal processing have been realized experimentally .

Digital Optical Signal Amplifier Using an Er-doped Fiber Optical Bistable Device

The principle and charecteristics of verious digital optical signal amplifiers using Er doped fiber optical bistability devices have been discussed. Optical signal gain and its variation with the parameters of the devices with constant or pulse optical bias have been calculated, and the design principle of those devices has been given.

Efficient stochastic parallel gradient descent training for on-chip optical processor

In recent years,space-division multiplexing(SDM)technology,which involves transmitting data information on multiple parallel channels for efficient capacity scaling,has been widely used in fiber and free-space optical communication sys-tems.To enable flexible data management and cope with the mixing between different channels,the integrated reconfig-urable optical processor is used for optical switching and mitigating the channel crosstalk.However,efficient online train-ing becomes intricate and challenging,particularly when dealing with a significant number of channels.Here we use the stochastic parallel gradient descent(SPGD)algorithm to configure the integrated optical processor,which has less com-putation than the traditional gradient descent(GD)algorithm.We design and fabricate a 6×6 on-chip optical processor on silicon platform to implement optical switching and descrambling assisted by the online training with the SPDG algorithm.Moreover,we apply the on-chip processor configured by the SPGD algorithm to optical communications for optical switching and efficiently mitigating the channel crosstalk in SDM systems.In comparison with the traditional GD al-gorithm,it is found that the SPGD algorithm features better performance especially when the scale of matrix is large,which means it has the potential to optimize large-scale optical matrix computation acceleration chips.

All-Optical Sampling Using Nonlinear Polarization Rotation in a Single Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

We propose a novel all-optical sampling method using nonlinear polarization rotation in a semiconductor optical amplifier. A rate-equation model capable of describing the all-optical sampling mechanism is presented in this paper. Based on this model, we investigate the optimized operating parameters of the proposed system by simulating the output intensity of the probe light as functions of the input polarization angle, the phase induced by the polarization controller, and the ori- entation of the polarization beam splitter. The simulated results show that we can obtain a good linear slope and a large linear dynamic range,which is suitable for all-optical sampling. The operating power of the pump light can be less than lmW. The presented all-optical sampling method can potentially operate at a sampling rate up to hundreds GS/s and needs low optical power.

A conditioned level-set method with block-division strategy to flame front extraction based on OH-PLIF measurements

A novel approach to extract flame fronts, which is called the conditioned level-set method with block division （CLSB）, has been developed. Based on a two-phase level-set formulation, the conditioned initialization and region-lock optimiza-tion appear to be beneficial to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the flame contour identification. The original block- division strategy enables the approach to be unsupervised by calculating local self-adaptive threshold values autonomously before binarization. The CLSB approach has been applied to deal with a large set of experimental data involving swirl- stabilized premixed combustion in diluted regimes operating at atmospheric pressures. The OH-PLIF measurements have been carried out in this framework. The resulting images are, thus, featured by lower signal-to-noise ratios （SNRs） than the ideal image; relatively complex flame structures lead to significant non-uniformity in the OH signal intensity; and, the mag- nitude of the maximum OH gradient observed along the flame front can also vary depending on flow or local stoichiometry. Compared with other conventional edge detection operators, the CLSB method demonstrates a good ability to deal with the OH-PLIF images at low SNR and with the presence of a multiple scales of both OH intensity and OH gradient. The robustness to noise sensitivity and intensity inhomogeneity has been evaluated throughout a range of experimental images of diluted flames, as well as against a circle test as Ground Truth （GT）.

Reconfigurable single-shot incoherent optical signal processing system for chirped microwave signal compression

We propose and demonstrate a reconfigurable and single-shot incoherent optical signal processing system for chirped microwave signal compression, using a programmable optical filter and a multiwavelength laser(MWL). The system is implemented by temporally modulating a specially shaped MWL followed by a suitable linear dispersive medium. A microwave dispersion value up to 1.33 ns/GHz over several GHz bandwidth is achieved based on this approach. Here we demonstrate a singleshot compression for different linearly chirped microwave signals over several GHz bandwidth. In addition, the robustness of the proposed system when input RF signals are largely distorted is also discussed.

Linear optical signal processing with optical filters： a tutorial

An effective theoretical analysis method is presented to analyze different linear optical signal processing functions with optical fikers reported in literatures. For different applications, the optical filters are supposed to operate on the analog or digital part of the signal separately, namely analog spectrum conversion and digital spectrum conversion. For instance, the return-to-zero （RZ） to non-return-to-zero （NRZ） format conversion for intensity or phase modulated signals are based on the analog spectrum conversion process, while the （N）RZ to （N）RZ phase-shift-keying （PSK） format conversion, logic NOT gate and clock recovery for RZ signals are based on the digital spectrum conversion process. Theoretical analyses with the help of numerical simulation are used to verify the reported experimental results, and all the experimental results can be effectively analyzed with this analytical model. The effect of the transmission spectrum of the filter on the performance of the converted signal is investigated. The most important factor is that the theoretical analysis provides an effective way to optimize the optical filter for different optical signal processing functions.

Optical time-domain differentiation based on intensive differential group delay

An optical time-domain differentiation scheme is proposed and demonstrated based on the intensive differential group delay in a high birefringence fibre waveguide. Results show that the differentiation waveforms agree well with the mathematically calculated derivatives. Both error and efficiency will increase when the birefringence fibre becomes longer, and the error rises up more quickly while the efficiency approaches to a maximum of ~0.25. By using a 1-m birefringence fibre a lower error of ~0.26% is obtained with an efficiency of 1% for the first-order differentiation of 10-ps Gaussian optical pulses, and the high-order optical differentiation up to 4th order is achieved with an error less than 3%. Due to its compact structure being easy to integrate and cascade into photonic circuits, our scheme has great potential for ultrafast signal processing.

Modified scaling angular spectrum method for numerical simulation in long-distance propagation

The angular method(AS)cannot be used in long-distance propagation because it produces severe numerical errors due to the sampling problem in the transfer function.Two ways can solve this problem in AS for long-distance propagation.One is zero-padding to make sure that the calculation window is wide enough,but it leads to a huge calculation burden.The other is a method called band-limited angular spectrum(BLAS),in which the transfer function is truncated and results in that the calculation accuracy decreases as the propagation distance increases.In this paper,a new method called modified scaling angular spectrum(MSAS)to solve the problem for long-distance propagation is proposed.A scaling factor is introduced in MSAS so that the sampling interval of the input plane can be adjusted arbitrarily unlike AS whose sampling interval is restricted by the detector’s pixel size.The sampling interval of the input plane is larger than the detector’s pixel size so the size of calculation window suitable for long-distance field propagation in the input plane is smaller than the size of the calculation window required by the zero-padding.Therefore,the method reduces the calculation redundancy and improves the calculation speed.The results from simulations and experiments show that MSAS has a good signal-to-noise ratio(SNR),and the calculation accuracy of MSAS is better than BLAS.

Biomedical applications of Jones-matrix tomography to polycrystalline films of biological fuids

Algorithms for reconstruction of linear and circular birefringence-dichroism of optically thin anisotropic biological layers are presented.The technique of Jones matrix tomography of poly-crystalline films of biological fuids of various human organs has been developed and experimentally tested.The coordinate distributions of phase and amplitude anisotropy of bile films and synovial fuid taken from the knee joint are determined and statistically analyzed.Criteria(statistical moments of 3rd and 4th orders)of differential diagnostics of early stages of cholelithiasis and septic arthritis of the knee joint with excellent balanced accuracy were determined.Data on the diagnostic fficiency of the Jones matrix tomography method for polyerystalline plasma(liver disease),urine(albuminuria)and cytological smears(cervical cancer)are presented.

All-Optical Signal Processing with Super-Continuum Generated from Optical Fibers

Super-continuum (SC) generated from optical fibers has many attractive applications in optical communication systems. Discussing the mechanism of wideband and flat SC generation, we describe all-optical signal processing that employs the SC.

Single-shot incoherent optical processing of microwave signals： opening the path to low cost high performance analog photonics

Incoherent optical processing of microwave signals,where low-coherence broadband light sources are employed instead of costly mode locked lasers,has attracted great interest thanks to its wide applications in microwave photonics filtering[1–3],arbitrary generation[4–6]and analog to digital conversion[7]。

Influence of the nonlinear propagation effect on the optical signal-to-noise ratio of 400G optical fiber communication systems

The influence of the nonlinear propagation effect on three 400 Gb/s/ch （400G） optical fiber communication systems with typical modulation formats, dual-carrier 16-quadrature amplitude modulation （16QAM）, single-carrier 16QAM （single-16QAM）, and four-carrier quadrature phase-shift keying, are investigated. The received optical signal-to-noise ratio （OSNR）, affected by the nonlinear interference noise together with the amplified spontaneous emission noise, are compared with three 400G systems and a standard 100 Gb/s/ch system by numerical simulations. Both single channel and multichannel cases are considered. Single-16QAM is found to have the best OSNR among those modulation formats.

Detection performance of trigger-controlled Geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes in weak optical signal detection

This Letter introduces a trigger-controlled Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode （GM-APD）. A hierarchical look- back-upon tree recurrence method is given to predict the performance of trigger-controlled GM-APDs under different trigger-count upper limits. In addition, the normalized detection probability is defined to evaluate the detection performance of trigger-controlled GM-APDs in typical weak optical signal detection （impulse noise and continuous noise situations）. Theoretical analyses show that the trigger-controlled GM-APD improves the detection performance of GM-APDs in weak optical signal detection via the optimization of the trigger-count upper limit, compared with single-trigger and multi-trigger GM-APDs.

Universal switching of plasmonic signals using optical resonator modes

We propose and investigate,both experimentally and theoretically,a novel mechanism for switching and modulating plasmonic signals based on a Fano interference process,which arises from the coupling between a narrow-band optical Fabry–Pérot cavity and a surface plasmon polariton(SPP)source.The SPP wave emitted from the cavity is actively modulated in the vicinity of the cavity resonances by altering the cavity Q-factor and/or resonant frequencies.We experimentally demonstrate dynamic SPP modulation both by mechanical control of the cavity length and all-optically by harnessing the ultrafast nonlinearity of the Au mirrors that form the cavity.An electro-optical modulation scheme is also proposed and numerically illustrated.Dynamic operation of the switch via mechanical means yields a modulation in the SPP coupling efficiency of~80%,while the all-optical control provides an ultrafast modulation with an efficiency of 30%at a rate of~0.6 THz.The experimental observations are supported by both analytical and numerical calculations of the mechanical,all-optical and electro-optical modulation methods.

Blind frequency offset estimation based on cyclic prefix and virtual subcarriers in CO-OFDM system

A new blind frequency offset estimation method based on cyclic prefix and virtual subcarriers in coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing （CO-OFDM） system is presented. It is able to estimate the fractional part and integral part of frequency offset at the same time. Its estimation range is about [-3.5 GHz, 3.5 GHz]. The influence of the integral frequency offset is comprehensively analyzed in COOFDM system. Its performances in the additive white Gaussian noise （AWGN） channel and the dispersive channel are investigated, respectively. Simulation results indicate that even in the dispersive channel, when the optical signal-to-noise ratio （OSNR） is low, it can still work very well.

Electronic compensator for 100-Gb/s PDM-CO-OFDM long-haul transmission systems

We study an electronic compensator （EC） as a receiver for a 100-Gb/s polarization division multiplexing coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing （PDM-CO-OFDM） system without optical dispersion compensation.EC,including electrical dispersion compensation （EDC）,least squares channel estimation and compensation （LSCEC）,and phase compensation （PC）,is used to compensate for chromatic dispersion （CD）,phase noise,polarization mode dispersion （PMD）,and channel impairments,respectively.Simulations show that EC is highly effective in compensating for those impairments and that the performance is close to the theoretical limitation of optical signal-to-noise rate （OSNR）,CD,and PMD.Its robustness against those transmission impairments and fiber nonlinearity are also systematically studied.

Full-band direct-conversion receiver with enhanced port isolation and I/Q phase balance using microwave photonic I/Q mixer

A full-band direct-conversion receiver using a microwave photonic in-phase and quadrature （I/Q） mixer is proposed and experimentally evaluated in terms of radio frequency （RF） range, port isolation, phase imbalance, conversion gain, noise figure, spurious-free dynamic range, and error vector magnitude. The proposed microwave photonic I/Q mixer shows significant advantages in locM oscillator leakage and I/Q phase imbalance over entire RF bands, which are recognized as major drawbacks of conventional direct-conversion receivers.

Ultrafast and real-time physical random bit extraction with all-optical quantization

Optical chaos generated by perturbing semiconductor lasers has been viewed,over recent decades,as an excellent entropy source for fast physical random bit generation(RBG)owing to its high bandwidth and large random fluctuations.However,most optical-chaos-based random bit generators perform their quantization process in the electrical domain using electrical analog-to-digital converters,so their real-time rates in a single channel are severely limited at the level of Gb/s due to the electronic bottleneck.Here,we propose and experimentally demonstrate an all-optical method for RBG where chaotic pulses are quantized into a physical random bit stream in the all-optical domain by means of a length of highly nonlinear fiber.In our proof-of-concept experiment,a 10-Gb/s random bit stream is successfully generated on-line using our method.Note that the single-channel real-time rate is limited only by the chaos bandwidth.Considering that the Kerr nonlinearity of silica fiber with an ultrafast response of few femtoseconds is exploited for composing the key part of quantizing laser chaos,this scheme thus may operate potentially at much higher real-time rates than 100 Gb/s provided that a chaotic entropy source of sufficient bandwidth is available.

Optical vortex copier and regenerator in the Fourier domain

The generation and manipulation of optical vortices are of fundamental importance in a variety of promising applications. Here, we develop a nonlinear optical paradigm to implement self- and cross-convolution of optical vortex arrays, demonstrating the features of a vortex copier and regenerator. We use a phase-only spatial light modulator to prepare the 1064 nm invisible fundamental light to carry special optical vortex arrays and use a potassium titanyl phosphate crystal to perform type Ⅱ second-harmonic generation in the Fourier domain to achieve 532 nm visible structured vortices. Based on pure cross-convolution, we succeed in copying arbitrary-order single vortices as well as their superposition states onto a prearranged array of fundamental Gaussian spots. Also, based on the simultaneous effect of self- and cross-convolutions, we can expand the initial vortex lattices to regenerate more vortices carrying various higher topological charges. Our presented method of realizing imaging, an optical vortex copier and regenerator could find direct applications in optical mani optical communication, and quantum information processing with structured vortex pulation, optical arrays.