134 research outputs found
High Power, Continuous-wave Supercontinuum Generation in Highly Nonlinear Fibers Pumped with High Order, Cascaded Raman Fiber Amplifiers
A novel method for efficient generation of high power, equalized
continuous-wave supercontinuum source in an all conventional silica fiber
architecture is demonstrated. Highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF) is pumped in its
anomalous dispersion region using a novel, high power, L-band laser. The L-band
laser encompasses a 6th order cascaded Raman amplifier which is pumped with a
high power Ytterbium doped fiber laser and amplifies a low-power, tunable
L-band seed source. The supercontinuum generated 35W of power with ~40%
efficiency. The Supercontinuum spectrum was measured to have a high degree of
flatness of better than 5 dB over 400 nm of bandwidth (1.3 - 1.7 micron,
limited by spectrum analyzer range) and a power spectral density in this region
of >50 mW/nm. The extent of the SC spectrum is estimated to be upto 2 micronComment: 6 pages, 5 figure
Generation of tunable, high repetition rate optical frequency combs using on-chip silicon modulators
We experimentally demonstrate tunable, highly-stable frequency combs with
high repetition-rates using a single, charge injection based silicon PN
modulator. In this work, we demonstrate combs in the C-band with over 8 lines
in a 20-dB bandwidth. We demonstrate continuous tuning of the center frequency
in the C-band and tuning of the repetition-rate from 7.5GHz to 12.5GHz. We also
demonstrate through simulations the potential for bandwidth scaling using an
optimized silicon PIN modulator. We find that, the time varying free carrier
absorption due to carrier injection, an undesirable effect in data modulators,
assists here in enhancing flatness in the generated combs.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
Fast Characterization of Dispersion and Dispersion Slope of Optical Fiber Links using Spectral Interferometry with Frequency Combs
We demonstrate fast characterization (~1.4 microseconds) of both the
dispersion and dispersion slope of long optical fiber links (~25 km) using dual
quadrature spectral interferometry with an optical frequency comb. Compared to
previous spectral interferometry experiments limited to fiber lengths of
meters, the long coherence length and the periodic delay properties of
frequency combs, coupled with fast data acquisition, enable spectral
interferometric characterization of fibers longer by several orders of
magnitude. We expect that our method will be useful to recently proposed
lightwave techniques like coherent WDM and to coherent modulation formats by
providing a real time monitoring capability for the link dispersion. Another
area of application would be in stabilization of systems which perform
frequency and timing distribution over long fiber links using stabilized
optical frequency combs.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, Minor changes to tex
Generation of very flat optical frequency combs from continuous-wave lasers using cascaded intensity and phase modulators driven by tailored radio frequency waveforms
We demonstrate a scheme, based on a cascade of lithium niobate intensity and
phase modulators driven by specially tailored radio frequency waveforms to
generate an optical frequency comb with very high spectral flatness. In this
work we demonstrate a 10 GHz comb with ~40 lines with spectral power variation
below 1-dB and ~60 lines in total. The number of lines that can be generated is
limited by the power handling capability of the phase modulator, and this can
be scaled without compromising the spectral flatness. Furthermore, the spectral
phase of the generated combs in our scheme is almost purely quadratic which, as
we will demonstrate, allows for very high quality pulse compression using only
single mode fiber.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, replaced the older version with the published
versio
Bandwidth scaling and spectral flatness enhancement of optical frequency combs from phase-modulated continuous-wave lasers using cascaded four-wave mixing
Optics LettersThe article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/ol.37.003066We introduce a new cascaded four-wave mixing technique that scales up the bandwidth of frequency combs generated by phase modulation of a continuous-wave (CW) laser while simultaneously enhancing the spectral flatness. As a result, we demonstrate a 10 GHz frequency comb with over 100 lines in a 10 dB bandwidth in which a record 75 lines are within a flatness of 1 dB. The cascaded four-wave mixing process increases the bandwidth of the initial comb generated by the modulation of a CW laser by a factor of five. The broadband comb has approximately quad- ratic spectral phase, which is compensated upon propagation in single-mode fiber, resulting in a 10 GHz train of 940 fs pulses.Funded by Naval Postgraduate SchoolNaval Postgraduate School under grant N00244-09- 1-0068 under the National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship program
- …