Spectral Sidebands and Multi-Pulse Formation in Passively Mode Locked Lasers

Pulse formation in passively mode locked lasers is often accompanied with dispersive waves that form of spectral sidebands due to spatial inhomogoneities in the laser cavity. Here we present an explicit calculation of the amplitude, frequency, and precise shape of the sidebands accompanying a soliton-like pulse. We then extend the study to the global steady state of mode locked laser with a variable number of pulses, and present experimental results in a mode locked fiber laser that confirm the theory. The strong correlation between the temporal width of the sidebands and the measured spacing between the pulses in multipulse operation suggests that the sidebands have an important role in the inter-pulse interaction.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Compression of periodic light pulses using all-optical repetition rate multiplication

Abstract We propose a novel method for compression of periodic optical pulses based on all-optical repetition rate multiplication of pulses without requiring propagation in a dispersive delay line. The compression principle is explained using the temporal Talbot effect. The proposed method is demonstrated experimentally with the generation of $20 ps pulses from cw radiation of a laser diode. The repetition rate multiplication is performed with fiber Bragg gratings. The proposed method simultaneously implements two important requirements of many fields, for example, of optical communications: pulse compression and pulse repetition rate multiplication. Conventional light pulse compression is accomplished in two stages, first by performing quadratic phase modulation of the pulses (linear chirp of frequency) and then propagating the modulated pulses through a dispersive delay line In the present method the original pulses (I 0 i

Supplement 1: Noise-mediated Casimir-like pulse interaction mechanism in lasers

Supplemental Document Originally published in Optica on 20 February 2016 (optica-3-2-189