Tinkerbell beams in a non-linear ring resonator

AbstractIn this article the dynamical behaviour of a beam that behaves according to a Tinkerbell map (i.e. Tinkerbell beam), within a nonlinear ring phase-conjugated resonator is modelled. The ABCD matrix of an optical device able to generate a two dimensional Tinkerbell map is found in terms of the map parameters, the state variables and the resonator parameters. For the first time to our knowledge the conditions in order to obtain the dynamics of a beam behaving according to a Tinkerbell map are found within an optical resonator. Finally some of the main technical problems to build a resonator intracavity element able to produce Tinkerbell beams are presented

Resonant and thermal changes of refractive index in a heavily doped erbium fiber pumped at wavelength 980 nm

We report a theoretical and experimental study of the refractive index variation in a heavily doped erbium silica fiber within the spectral range 1500-1580 nm under the pumping at the wavelength 980 nm. The two main contributions in the refractive index change are addressed the resonant part determined by the saturation effect in the fiber and the thermal part stemming from the fiber heating due to the excited-state absorption and Stokes losses. We demonstrate that the thermal contribution in the resultant refractive index change is a notable value, which is the feature of erbium fibers with a high concentration of erbium ions

Smart Q-switching for single-pulse generation in an erbium-doped fiber laser

In this paper, we report an active Q-switching of an erbiumdoped fiber laser with special modulation functions and novel laser geometry. We experimentally demonstrate that using such a smart Q-switch approach, Q-switch ripple-free pulses with Gaussian-like shape and 17.3 ns width can be easily obtained. The idea behind the smart Q-switch is to suppress one of two laser waves contra-propagating along the fiber cavity, which arises after Q-cell opening, and to eliminate the minor sub-pulses

Electrically tunable photonic true-time-delay line

We present a new application of the acousto-optic superlattice modulation of a fiber Bragg grating based on the dynamic phase and group delay properties of this fiber-optic component. We demonstrate a tunable photonic true-time-delay line based on the group delay change of the light reflected from the grating sidebands. The delay is electrically tuned by adjusting the voltage applied to a piezoelectric transducer that generates the acoustic wave propagating along the grating. In our experiments, a truetime delay of 400 ps is continuously adjusted (300 ps within the 3 dB amplitude range of the first sideband), using a 12 cm long uniform grating

Dual-kind Q-switching of erbium fiber laser

Two different regimes of Q-switching in the same implementation of an actively Q-switched erbium-doped fiber laser are demonstrated. Depending on the active fiber length and repetition rate of an intracavity Q-cell (acousto-optic modulator), the laser operates either in the regime of common, rather long and low-power, pulses composed of several sub-pulses or in the one of very short and powerful stimulated Brillouin scattering-induced pulses. The basic physical reason of the laser system to oscillate in one of these two regimes is the existence or absence of CW narrow-line 'bad-cavity' lasing in the intervals when the Q-cell is blocked

Effective length of short Fabry-Perot cavity formed by uniform fiber Bragg gratings

In this paper, we describe the properties of Fabry-Perot fiber cavity formed by two fiber Bragg gratings in terms of the grating effective length. We show that the grating effective length is determined by the group delay of the grating, which depends on its diffraction efficiency and physical length. We present a simple analytical formula for calculation of the effective length of the uniform fiber Bragg grating and the frequency separation between consecutive resonances of a Fabry-Perot cavity. Experimental results on the cavity transmission spectra for different values of the gratings' reflectivity support the presented theory