Abstract
Gyroscopes merit an undeniable role in inertial navigation systems, geodesy and seismology. By employing the optical Sagnac effect, ring laser gyroscopes provide exceptionally accurate measurements of even ultraslow angular velocity with a resolution up to 10 rad/s. With the recent advancement of ultrafast fibre lasers and, particularly, enabling effective bidirectional generation, their applications have been expanded to the areas of dual-comb spectroscopy and gyroscopy. Exceptional compactness, maintenance-free operation and rather low cost make ultrafast fibre lasers attractive for sensing applications. Remarkably, laser gyroscope operation in the ultrashort pulse generation regime presents a promising approach for eliminating sensing limitations caused by the synchronisation of counter-propagating channels, the most critical of which is frequency lock-in. In this work, we overview the fundamentals of gyroscopic sensing and ultrafast fibre lasers to bridge the gap between tools development and their real-world applications. This article provides a historical outline, highlights the most recent advancements and discusses perspectives for the expanding field of ultrafast fibre laser gyroscopes. We acknowledge the bottlenecks and deficiencies of the presented ultrafast laser gyroscope concepts due to intrinsic physical effects or currently available measurement methodology. Finally, the current work outlines solutions for further ultrafast laser technology development to translate to future commercial gyroscopes.
Highlights
The term “gyroscope” was introduced by Léon Foucault in 1852, referring to a device for measuring angular rotation
Noises in mode-locked lasers are generally characterised as fluctuations in pulse intensity or average power [132] and noises of frequency comb [133], such as variations in the repetition f rep and carrier-envelope offset f ceo frequencies [134,135]
Most recently, modelocked fibre lasers have shown themselves as a perspective tool for optical Sagnac effect detection
Summary
The term “gyroscope” was introduced by Léon Foucault in 1852, referring to a device for measuring angular rotation. The dead-band can be suppressed, but not completely eliminated, by coating cavity mirrors with high-reflective dielectrics [15], by applying external dithering [16] or improvement of laser cavity geometry (e.g., developing triangleshaped cavity) [17] Such methods substantially increase the complexity and total price of the laser gyroscopes. Ultrashort pulsed fibre laser gyroscopes inherit exceptional perspectives to become a prominent tool for dead-band-free measurements of angular velocities. Portraying the whole process from fabrication and characterisation of bidirectional mode-locked fibre laser cavities to the optical Sagnac effect evaluation, we provide insight into the possibilities of such gyroscopic systems, deliver a complete interdisciplinary package for future research or an introduction to the field. We cover the fundamentals of mode-locking operation, characterisation of pulsed laser generation, including bidirectional fibre laser setups for potential gyroscopic applications. The Review is concluded with an overview of the current research directions and outcomes with future perspectives
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