Optical fiber link for transmission of 1-nJ femtosecond laser pulses at 1550 nm

Finn Eichhorn,Rasmus Kjelsmark Olsson,Peter Uhd Jepsen,Jens Engholm Pedersen,Lars Grüner-Nielsen,Jonas C D Buron

doi:10.1364/oe.18.006978

Abstract

We report on numerical and experimental characterization of the performance of a fiber link optimized for the delivery of sub-100-fs laser pulses at 1550 nm over several meters of fiber. We investigate the power handling capacity of the link, and demonstrate all-fiber delivery of 1-nJ pulses over a distance of 5.3 m. The fiber link consists of dispersion-compensating fiber (DCF) and standard single-mode fiber. The optical pulses at different positions in the fiber link are measured using frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG). The results are compared with numerical simulations of the pulse propagation based on the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation. The high input power capacity of the fiber link allows the splitting and distribution of femtosecond pulses to an array of fibers with applications in multi-channel fiber-coupled terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and imaging systems. We demonstrate THz pulse generation and detection using a distributed fiber link with 32 channels and 2.6 nJ input pulse energy.

Highlights

Delivery of nJ, sub-100-fs laser pulses via an all-fiber distribution link has many applications in multi-photon microscopy [1], terahertz spectroscopy [2] and terahertz imaging [3] as well as in other areas where beam delivery of fs-pulses via optical fiber is of an advantage
We report on numerical and experimental characterization of the performance of a fiber link optimized for the delivery of sub-100-fs laser pulses at 1550 nm over several meters of fiber
We investigate the power handling capacity of the link, and demonstrate all-fiber delivery of 1-nJ pulses over a distance of 5.3 m

Summary

Introduction

Delivery of nJ, sub-100-fs laser pulses via an all-fiber distribution link has many applications in multi-photon microscopy [1], terahertz spectroscopy [2] and terahertz imaging [3] as well as in other areas where beam delivery of fs-pulses via optical fiber is of an advantage. Abstract: We report on numerical and experimental characterization of the performance of a fiber link optimized for the delivery of sub-100-fs laser pulses at 1550 nm over several meters of fiber.

Results

Conclusion