Hou-Ren Chen

Stable Q-switched mode-locked Nd3+:LuVO4 laser by Cr4+:YAG crystal

In use of saturable Cr(4+):YAG crystals, we have demonstrated the stable Q-switched and mode-locked (QML) operation of the Nd:LuVO(4) laser. The operation range of QML in use of the Cr(4+):YAG is larger than that use of SESAM and NLM. The obtained shape of Q-switched envelope, repetition rate and pulse energy are demonstrated to depend on the initial transmittance of the Cr(4+):YAG and reflectivity of the output coupler. Using R = 60% and T(0) = 40%, the highest pulse energy of 77 microJ of each Q-switched envelope, and the highest peak power about 200 kW of Q-switched mode-locked pulses can be obtained at 15 W pump power. It demonstrate the superior characteristic of the Nd:LuVO(4) crystal.

High-power, passively mode-locked Nd:GdVO 4 laser using single-walled carbon nanotubes as saturable absorber

The single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have been widely investigated for making SWCNTs a promising saturable absorber for mode-locking a laser. The SWCNT-SAs have been used for mode-locking lasers operated near 1.0 and 1.5 µm. Until recently, the SWCNT-SAs have been widely used to passively mode-lock the diode-pumped solid-state lasers [1,2]. However, the output power of these lasers is still very low (less than 500 mW) due to the low heat resistance of the polymer material in the SWCNT/polymer composite film. In this paper, the SWCNT-SA film is fabricated without the polymer material by using a vertical evaporation technique [3], and then used in the passive mode-locking of Nd:GdVO4 laser at 1-µm. We obtain the highest output power to our knowledge with the new prepared SWCNT-SA film.

Passive mode locking of ytterbium- and erbium-doped all-fiber lasers using graphene oxide saturable absorbers.

Broadband graphene oxide/PVA films were used as saturable absorbers (SAs) for mode locking erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) and ytterbium-doped fiber laser (YDFL) at 1.06 μm and 1.55 μm. They provide modulation depths of 3.15% and 6.2% for EDFL and YDFL, respectively. Stable self-starting mode-locked pulses are obtained for both lasers, confirming that the graphene oxide is cost-effective. We have generated mode-locked pulses with spectral width, repetition rate, and pulse duration of 0.75 nm, 9.5 MHz, and 2.7 ps. This is the shortest pulse duration directly obtained from an all-normal-dispersion YDFL with graphene-oxide saturable absorber.

12 GHz passive harmonic mode-locking in a 1.06 μm semiconductor optical amplifier-based fiber laser with figure-eight cavity configuration

We report the generation of passively harmonic mode-locked pulses using a 1.06 μm semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) in a figure-eight laser configuration operated in the all-normal-dispersion regime. Different orders of harmonic mode-locking can be obtained from 30 MHz to 12.02 GHz by changing the injection current of the SOA from 80 to 660 mA together with the adjustment of polarization controllers. The highest pulse repetition rate increases almost linearly with the SOA current. As SOA current is set to 660 mA, we obtain the intracavity power of 46 mW at the highest repetition rate of 12.02 GHz, corresponding to the 1202th harmonic of the fundamental mode-locking frequency. To our best knowledge, this is the lowest intracavity power to generate the highest repetition rate with a passively mode-locked laser in the all-normal-dispersion regime.

Investigation of Graphene Dispersion From Kelly Sideband in Stable Mode-Locked Erbium-Doped Fiber Laser by Few-Layer Graphene Saturable Absorbers

In this paper, stable passively mode-locked fiber lasers (MLFLs) constructed using graphene saturable absorbers (SAs) with different layer numbers of ~1 to ~15 have been reported. The flat linear transmission spectrum in the range from 1540 to 1580 nm without any distinct absorption peak implies that the graphene SAs exhibit low dispersion in this region. Therefore, stable soliton-like pulses are generated because of negative dispersion provided by the fiber laser cavity, which requires no additional single-mode fiber (SMF) for dispersion compensation. Power-dependent transmission measurements show that the saturation intensity ranges from 1.2 to 3.2 MW/cm2 and that the modulation depth (MD) of the graphene SAs increases with the number of graphene layers. All the samples were observed to easily mode-lock the laser with a stable mode-locking state persistently operated over hours. By analyzing the soliton Kelly sidebands, we deduced the group delay dispersion (GDD) for different layers of the graphene. The calculated results show that the variation of sample GDD is within the calculation error, indicating that the GDD of graphene is small to be negligible. This result is consistent with the experimental results reported by Chang et al. [Appl. Phys. Lett. 97, 211102 (2010)] using the phase-shift method. This study demonstrates that different layers graphene SAs have different MD contributions to the generation of laser pulses with different pulse widths.

Generation of optical waveforms in 1.3-μm SOA-based fiber lasers

Passive optical waveform generation is obtained in fiber lasers using a 1.3-μm semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) as the gain medium. Various waveforms, including square wave, staircase wave, triangular wave, pulse, and dark pulse are generated in SOA-based fiber lasers by adjusting intracavity polarization controllers. The passive waveform generation might be attributed to the SOA gain dynamics and the enhanced nonlinear interaction at the 1.3-μm zero dispersion wavelength of traditional single-mode fiber (SMF), as well as the interference effect between the two sub-cavities of fiber laser. With figure-8 cavity configuration, 1250th-order harmonic pulses have been successfully demonstrated. We have also obtained a free-running SOA-based fiber laser with 3-dB spectral width of 16 nm, and the center wavelength can be tuned over 45 nm range.

Stress-Induced Versatile Tunable Long-Period Gratings in Photonic Crystal Fibers

We report a method for generating versatile tunable long-period gratings (LPGs) in photonic crystal fibers (PCFs). The central wavelength and rejection bandwidth of LPGs can be tuned over a broad spectral range with adjustable transmission loss. Spectral fringes with uneven spacing are observed in chirped LPGs, depending on the interaction length and the amount of chirping between the two ends of the LPG, and can be removed by reducing the chirping and increasing the grating length. By utilizing a stress-induced LPG, gain flattening of an erbium-doped fiber amplifier has also been demonstrated.

Phase retrieval by using the transport-of-intensity equation with Hilbert transform

Phase recovery by solving the transport-of-intensity equation (TIE) is a non-iterative and non-interferometric phase retrieval technique. From solving the TIE with conventional, one partial derivative and Hilbert transform methods for both the periodic and aperiodic samples, we demonstrate that the Hilbert transform method can provide the smoother phase images with edge enhancement and fine structures. Furthermore, compared with the images measured by optical and atomic force microscopy, the Hilbert transform method has the ability to quantitatively map out the phase images for both the periodic and aperiodic structures.

The dominant effect of non-centrosymmetric displacement on the crystal-field energy splitting in the strained a-plane ZnO epi-films on r-plane sapphires

The polarization-dependent photoluminescence (PL) of the a-plane ZnO (a-ZnO) films grown on r-plane sapphire substrates shows that the crystal-field energy splitting (ΔCF) becomes larger with increasing film thickness from 24 nm to 291 nm. In the use of the nonlinear fitting of the stress–strain tensor to the X-ray diffraction data, we found crystal symmetry breaking from wurtzite to monoclinic in these films and determined the corresponding lattice constants and the relaxed lattice constants. With the available lattice variables, we further used the tight-binding method to calculate the band energies and compared with the PL spectra. The results confirm that the crystal deformation and the non-centrosymmetric displacement had opposite effects on the ΔCF at the Γ point and the displacement induced by the strain is the dominant effect on ΔCF.

High-quality and Large-size Topological Insulator Bi2Te3-Gold Saturable Absorber Mirror for Mode-Locking Fiber Laser.

A novel high-quality, large-size, reflection-type topological insulator Bi2Te3-Gold (BG) film-based nonlinear optical modulator has been successfully fabricated as a two-dimensional saturable absorber mirror (SAM) by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). This BG-SAM possesses saturation fluence of 108.3 μJ/cm2, modulation depth (ΔR) of 6.5%, non-saturable loss of 38.4%, high damage threshold above 1.354 mJ/cm2 and excellent uniformity providing for the generation of passive mode-locked (ML) pulses for erbium-doped fiber lasers (EDFLs) on a large sample area. Under 124 mW 976 nm pumping, We obtained 452-fs continuous-wave ML pulses with pulse energy of 91 pJ and full width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 6.72-nm from this EDFL. The results clearly evidence that the PLD is an efficient method for fabricating BG-SAM that is suitable for a compact ultrafast ML fiber laser system.