Meng Pang

Wideband-tunable soliton fiber laser mode-locked at 1.88 GHz by optoacoustic interactions in solid-core PCF

We report a wavelength-tunable soliton fiber laser stably mode-locked at 1.88 GHz (the 389th harmonic of the cavity round-trip frequency) by a light-driven acoustic resonance in the core of a photonic crystal fiber. Stable high-harmonic mode-locking could be maintained when the lasing wavelength was continuously tuned from 1532 to 1566 nm by means of an optical filter placed inside the laser cavity. We report on the experimental performance of the laser, including its power scalability, super-mode noise suppression ratio, long-term repetition rate stability, short-term pulse amplitude noise and timing jitter, optical comb structure and pulse-to-pulse phase fluctuations.

Supercontinuum generation in ZBLAN glass photonic crystal fiber with six nanobore cores

Photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) made from ZBLAN glass are of great interest for generating broadband supercontinua extending into the ultraviolet and mid-infrared regions. Precise sub-micrometer structuring makes it possible to adjust the modal dispersion over a wide range, making the generation of new frequencies more efficient. Here we report a novel ZBLAN PCF with six cores, each containing a central nanobore of a diameter ∼330  nm. Each nanobore core supports several guided modes, and the presence of the nanobore significantly modifies the dispersion, strongly influencing the dynamics and the extent of supercontinuum generation. Spectral broadening is observed when a single core is pumped in the fundamental and first higher order core modes with 200 fs long pulses at a wavelength of 1042 nm. Frequency-resolved optical gating is used to characterize the output pulses when pumping in the lowest order mode. The results are verified by numerical simulations.

Multi-soliton bound states in fibre laser harmonically mode-locked at GHz-rates by optoacoustic effects in PCF

Soliton bound-states in passive mode-locked fiber lasers have been extensively studied in connection with potential applications in optical telecommunications, optical sampling and high-resolution spectroscopy [1, 2]. In most reported cases, the bound state appears in form of a soliton-pair and its formation relies on cross-phase modulation between the pulses. As a result, the temporal spacing between the soliton pair is generally limited to several times the pulse duration, and their relative phase is locked [1, 2].

Stable GHz-rate mode-locking of fiber lasers by optoacoustic effects in photonic crystal fibers

Tightly-trapped optoacoustic interactions in solid-core photonic crystal fibers have been successfully used for harmonically mode-locking fiber lasers at GHz repetition rate and storing encoded GHz-rate soliton sequence in the laser cavity over many hours.

Programmable generation and storage of soliton sequences in fibre laser cavity locked to gigahertz core resonance in PCF

Programmable sequences of solitons at gigahertz repetition rates are stored in a fibre laser cavity. The underlying temporal grid is set by the acoustic core resonance in a solid-core PCF, which via optoacoustic action/back-action locks the temporal spacing between solitons.