Second-order fractional Talbot effect induced frequency-doubling optical pulse injection for 40 GHz rational-harmonic mode-locking of an SOA fiber laser

Abstract

A second-order fractional Talbot effect induced frequency-doubling of a 10 GHz optical pulse-train is demonstrated to backward injection mode-lock a semiconductor optical amplifier fiber laser (SOAFL) for 40 GHz rational-harmonic mode-locking (RHML). That is, a real all-optical gain-modulation of the SOAFL can be created by injecting such a time-multiplexed but pseudo-frequency-doubled pulse-train into the cavity. The time-multiplexing pulse-train can thus be transformed into a frequency-multiplied pulse-train via cross-gain modulation (XGM). The optical pulse-train at 10 GHz is generated by nonlinearly driving an electro-absorption modulator (EAM), which experiences the second-order fractional Talbot effect after propagating through a 4 km long dispersion compensation fiber (DCF). The DCF not only plays the role of frequency-doubler but also compensates the frequency chirp of the 10 GHz optical pulse-train. The pulsewidth broadening from 22 to 60 ps for initiating the time-domain Talbot effect is simulated by the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. With careful detuning of the RF modulation power of the EAM at 5 dBm, the generated 20 GHz optical pulse-train exhibits a positive frequency chirp with minimum peak-to-peak value of 2 GHz, and the peak-amplitude fluctuation between adjacent pulses is below 1.4%. In comparison with the SOAFL pulse-train repeated at 40 GHz generated by the fourth-order purely RHML process, the optimized second-order fractional Talbot effect in combination with the second-order RHML mechanism significantly enhances the modulation-depth of RHML, thus improving the on/off extinction ratio of the 40 GHz SOAFL pulse-train from 1.8 to 5.6 dB. Such a new scheme also provides a more stable 40 GHz RHML pulse-train from the SOAFL with its timing jitter reducing from 0.51 to 0.23 ps.