Coherent optical gyroscope on the basis of the bidirectional ultra-short pulse Erbium ring fiber laser

Abstract

A gyroscopic effect has been studied in the bidirectional ultra-short pulse erbium-doped fiber ring laser hybridly mode-locked with a co-action of a Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube-based saturable absorber (SWCNT-SA) and Nonlinear Polarization Evolution introduced by means of the short-segment polarizing fiber. Owing to the Kerr nonlinearity contribution through self-phase modulation and self-steepening effects to the carrier-to-envelope phase slip of both clockwise (CW) and counterclockwise (CCW) solitons, wideband controllable tuning of a gyroscope bias point has been demonstrated by means of an appropriate adjustment of either intracavity polarization or pump power. Angular velocity detected ranges from 0.12 deg/s to 360 deg/s while the highest rotation sensitivity reaches 7 kHz/(deg/s) for 0.79 m2 single-coil ring gyroscope being in agreement with the calculated scale factor value. The gyroscope dead band with upper limit of ≈5.15 deg/s corresponding to the beat-note frequency of ≈15 kHz has been detected during clockwise rotation of the gyroscope. The highest gyroscope resolution of ≈0.01 deg/s=38 deg/h has been estimated on the basis of the bias point drift measurement.