Femtosecond combs for optical frequency metrology

This thesis is dedicated to femtosecond combs as a tool for optical frequency metrology and as an integral part of an optical clock. After an overview of optical frequency measurement techniques, the design of two frequency combs based on mode-locked femtosecond lasers as they were at the beginning of my project is described. The first comb is based on an Er:fibre laser operating at a central wavelength of 1550 nm with a repetition rate of 100 MHz. The second is a Ti:sapphire-laser-based comb operating at a central wavelength of 810 nm with a repetition rate of 87 MHz. Improvements to the original design of the Ti:sapphire comb are detailed in the next chapter. A novel f-to-2f self-referencing scheme based on a pair of Wollaston prisms and employing a PPKTP crystal for SHG results in up to 20 dB enhancement of the signal to noise ratio in the carrier-envelope offset frequency beat signal f0 and in up to 15 dB lower phase noise in the f0 beat signal compared to a Michelson interferometer based system. Next, the factors influencing the stability and accuracy of the microwave reference signal and the performance of two synthesisers used for the stabilisation of the frequency combs were investigated. It is shown that stability of the maser reference signal is reduced by the distribution system by factor of 1.5. A fractional frequency change of 4.1(0.7) × 10−16 (K/h)−1 was measured for the better of the two synthesisers (an IFR 2023A) indicating that for accurate frequency measurements the synthesiser signal should be monitored to enable systematic frequency corrections to be made. Finally, an absolute frequency measurement of the electric quadrupole clock transition in a frequency standard based on a single 171Yb+ trapped ion is described. The result f = 688 358 979 309 310 ± 9 Hz agrees with an independent measurement made by the PTB group within the uncertainty of the measurements

400 Hz volume rate swept-source optical coherence tomography at 1060 nm using a KTN deflector

In this Letter, a swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) instrument employing an innovative scanning protocol for high-speed volumetric rate imaging is demonstrated. The optical source is a tunable laser based on a supercontinuum source pumped with femtosecond pulses, followed by a time-stretched delay fiber. The instrument is equipped with an ultra-fast lateral scanner, based on a KTN crystal, driven at 100 kHz. The paper proves the utility of combining an ultra-fast lateral scanner with an ultra-fast swept laser to provide A-scans at a repetition rate of 40 MHz and an unprecedented 3D-OCT volume acquisition rate of 400 Hz

Polarization attractors in harmonic mode-locked fiber laser

We report on a polarimetry of harmonic mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser with carbon nanotubes saturable absorber. We find new types of vector solitons with locked, switching and precessing states of polarization. The underlying physics presents interplay between birefringence of a laser cavity created by polarization controller along with light induced anisotropy caused by polarization hole burning

Revealing the nature of morphological changes in carbon nanotube-polymer saturable absorber under high-power laser irradiation

Composites of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) and water-soluble polymers (WSP) are the focus of significant worldwide research due to a number of applications in biotechnology and photonics, particularly for ultrashort pulse generation. Despite the unique possibility of constructing non-linear optical SWNT-WSP composites with controlled optical properties, their thermal degradation threshold and limit of operational power remain unexplored. In this study, we discover the nature of the SWNT-polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) film thermal degradation and evaluate the modification of the composite properties under continuous high-power ultrashort pulse laser operation. Using high-precision optical microscopy and micro-Raman spectroscopy, we have examined SWNT-PVA films before and after continuous laser radiation exposure (up to 40 hours) with a maximum optical fluence of 2.3 mJ·cm−2. We demonstrate that high-intensity laser radiation results in measurable changes in the composition and morphology of the SWNT-PVA film due to efficient heat transfer from SWNTs to the polymer matrix. The saturable absorber modification does not affect the laser operational performance. We anticipate our work to be a starting point for more sophisticated research aimed at the enhancement of SWNT-PVA films fabrication for their operation as reliable saturable absorbers in high-power ultrafast lasers

Carbon nanotubes for ultrafast fibre lasers

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) possess both remarkable optical properties and high potential for integration in various photonic devices. We overview, here, recent progress in CNT applications in fibre optics putting particular emphasis on fibre lasers. We discuss fabrication and characterisation of different CNTs, development of CNT-based saturable absorbers (CNT-SA), their integration and operation in fibre laser cavities putting emphasis on state-of-the-art fibre lasers, mode locked using CNT-SA. We discuss new design concepts of high-performance ultrafast operation fibre lasers covering ytterbium (Yb), bismuth (Bi), erbium (Er), thulium (Tm) and holmium (Ho)-doped fibre lasers

Double-Wall Carbon Nanotube Hybrid Mode-Locker in Tm-doped Fibre Laser: A Novel Mechanism for Robust Bound-State Solitons Generation

The complex nonlinear dynamics of mode-locked fibre lasers, including a broad variety of dissipative structures and self-organization effects, have drawn significant research interest. Around the 2 μm band, conventional saturable absorbers (SAs) possess small modulation depth and slow relaxation time and, therefore, are incapable of ensuring complex inter-pulse dynamics and bound-state soliton generation. We present observation of multi-soliton complex generation in mode-locked thulium (Tm)-doped fibre laser, using double-wall carbon nanotubes (DWNT-SA) and nonlinear polarisation evolution (NPE). The rigid structure of DWNTs ensures high modulation depth (64%), fast relaxation (1.25 ps) and high thermal damage threshold. This enables formation of 560-fs soliton pulses; two-soliton bound-state with 560 fs pulse duration and 1.37 ps separation; and singlet+doublet soliton structures with 1.8 ps duration and 6 ps separation. Numerical simulations based on the vectorial nonlinear Schr¨odinger equation demonstrate a transition from single-pulse to two-soliton bound-states generation. The results imply that DWNTs are an excellent SA for the formation of steady single- and multi-soliton structures around 2 μm region, which could not be supported by single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). The combination of the potential bandwidth resource around 2 μm with the soliton molecule concept for encoding two bits of data per clock period opens exciting opportunities for data-carrying capacity enhancement.M.C. acknowledges the support of EU Horizon2020 Marie S.-Curie IF MINDFLY project. A.E.B. acknowledges the support of Russian Science Foundation (grant 14-21-00110). M.A.A. acknowledges the support of Ministry of Higher Education Sultanate of Oman. T.H. acknowledges the support of Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowship (Graphlex). The support by the Marie-Curie Inter-national Research Staff Exchange Scheme “TelaSens” project, Research Executive Agency Grant No. 269271, Programme: FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IRSES and European Research Council through the FP7-IDEAS-ERC grant ULTRALASER are gratefully acknowledged