Optical Amplifier Research Articles

A Review of Optical Parametric Amplification at the Vulcan Laser Facility

An overview of Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplification (OPCPA) is given as the basis for the next generation of ultra-intense laser systems (>1×1023 W/cm2). The benefits and drawbacks of OPCPA are discussed to explain the choice behind the decisions for the direction of the Central Laser Facility’s (CLF) upcoming Vulcan 20-20 project. A history of OPCPA use at the CLF is described to surmise the foundation of the confidence in this technology for Vulcan 20-20; a 20 PW user facility for high-intensity plasma physics.

High power single crystal KTA optical parametric amplifier for efficient 1.4–3.5 µm mid-IR radiation generation

In this paper, we present a single crystal, KTA (potassium titanyl-arsenate, KTiOAsO4) based picosecond optical parametric amplifier pumped by an in-house built 1030 nm Yb:YAG thin-disk laser, capable of tunability from 1.46 to 3.5 µm, operating at 90 kHz, with high average power in the signal and idler beams. The highest output power of 8.9 W was reached for the 1750 nm signal beam with 19% conversion efficiency and the respective 2500 nm idler beam power was 6.2 W with 13% efficiency. The highest combined signal and idler mid-infrared power was 17 W at the 2060 nm wavelength degeneracy point.

Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers with Wide Gain Bandwidth and Enhanced Polarization Insensitivity Based on Tensile-Strained Quantum Wells.

The paper presents a wide-bandwidth, low-polarization semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) based on strained quantum wells. By enhancing the material gain of quantum wells for TM modes, we have extended the gain bandwidth of the SOA while reducing its polarization sensitivity. Through a combination of tilted waveguide design and cavity surface optical thin film design, we have effectively reduced the cavity surface reflectance of the SOA, thus decreasing device transmission losses and noise figure. At a wavelength of 1550 nm and a drive current of 1.4 A, the output power can reach 188 mW, with a small signal gain of 36.4 dB and a 3 dB gain bandwidth of 128 nm. The linewidth broadening is only 1.032 times. The polarization-dependent gain of the SOA is below 1.4 dB, and the noise figure is below 5.5 dB. The device employs only I-line lithography technology, offering simple fabrication processes and low costs yet delivering outstanding and stable performance. The designed SOA achieves wide gain bandwidth, high gain, low polarization sensitivity, low linewidth broadening, and low noise, promising significant applications in the wide-bandwidth optical communication field across the S + C + L bands.

Total losses and dispersion effects management and upgrading fiber reach in ultra-high optical transmission system based on hybrid amplification system

Abstract This work demonstrated the total losses and dispersion effects management and upgrading the fiber reach in ultra-high optical transmission system based on hybrid amplification system. Based on the requirements of the system, a number of trade-offs must be made between the numerous interconnected performance characteristics of each component in the design of a high quality transmission link. The transmission distance is the greatest distance that an optical signal has to travel. It affects the choice of optical component, fiber type, and signal amplification techniques. Fiber amplifiers or signal regeneration may be required to compensate for signal loss over greater distances. Reviewing these crucial aspects helps when selecting the best optical components and system layout. This ensures the optical link performs as expected. Hybrid amplification system unit (EDFA/Raman/EDFA), (EDFA/Raman), (BFA/PDFA) and (Raman/EDFA) is employed in the transmission system to strength the signal and upgrade the system performance operation efficiency. Space division multiplexing scheme is also employed with the propagation scheme in order to upgrade and control of the total losses and dispersion effects. The optimum total losses/dispersion/repeater spacing are studied with the variations of the total number of links per fiber core channel.

Channel power management of 400 G transmission system based on C6T + L6 T spectrum and QPSK modulation format

In the 400 Gbit/s transmission system based on C + L band spectrum and QPSK modulation format, the short-wavelength signal power will be shifted to the long-wavelength signal due to the presence of the stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) effect, which will seriously affect the performance of the transmission system as the transmission span accumulates. The solution is to set the gain and gain slopes of the C-band amplifier and L-band amplifier appropriately at each optical amplifier site, and adjust the signal power of each channel through the WSS at the transmitting end and the WSS at the DGE site, so that the flatness of the channel power at the receiving end can be controlled in a reasonable range, thus guaranteeing the transmission performance of the system. However, the system fault will destroy the originally set channel power, which will seriously affect the transmission performance of the system. In this paper, filling channel device combined with output power locking of amplifiers used in a 400 Gbit/s system based on C + L band and QPSK modulation format to provide the protection for the system is proposed and demonstrated for the first time, which gives different solutions for sudden fault at different locations of the system, and provides a reference for the channel power management of multi-band optical transmission systems in the future.

Design, optimization, and analysis of thulium-doped optical fiber amplifiers for E-band communication

Design, optimization, and analysis of thulium-doped optical fiber amplifiers for E-band communication

Fully spectrum-sliced four-wave mixing wavelength conversion in a Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

Fully spectrum-sliced four-wave mixing wavelength conversion in a Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

Non-line of sight analysis for vehicular visible light communication system: Impact of artificial light source and weather conditions

Visible light communication is seen as a crucial technology within optical wireless communication systems. The technology of vehicular visible light communication holds significant importance in the context of connected vehicles. This technology can serve as a supplementary solution to vehicular systems that are based on radio frequency. In this paper, the authors conduct an analysis of the performance of both line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight vehicle-to-vehicle visible light communication systems under the effect of artificial light source and weather conditions, including clear, hazy, and foggy weather. A practical vehicular laser diode, a street lamp, and an avalanche photodiode are used to design the proposed system model. Performance enhancement for the proposed system is achieved using an optical amplifier at the receiving end. An artificial light source of light-emitting diode Corn-type is used to represent an ambient artificial light source. Different metrics such as quality factor and bit error rate are used to assess the system performance of the non-line-of-sight-vehicular communication system. The proposed line-of-sight model achieves a data rate of 25 Gbps, supporting a distance of 80 m under clear sky and hazy atmospheric conditions. For foggy weather, an attainable link distance of 70 m is achieved. The achieved results emphasize the suitability of the suggested models for vehicular applications in real world environment.

Enhanced ultra-wideband optical frequency comb generation based on cross-polarization modulation effect of semiconductor optical amplifier

Enhanced ultra-wideband optical frequency comb generation based on cross-polarization modulation effect of semiconductor optical amplifier

Optical amplification across the whole communication windows in PbS quantum-dot-doped fiber

The surge of big data, cloud computing, and AI bring in explosive requirement of data transmission capacities. However, the transmission capacity of traditional single-mode-fiber already reaches its limit due to the narrow emission bandwidth of rare-earth-ion. Here, we achieved ultra-broadband optical amplification in O + E + S + C + L bands for the first time in PbS quantum-dot-doped glass fiber with the maximum gain of 5 dB at 1370 nm under 100 mW pump. The mechanism of the broadband optical amplification, the advantages of quantum dot-doped fiber amplifier (QDFA), and a new measurement scheme for QDFA are systematically discussed. It is believed that in the future, the further optimization of the composition and architectures of the glass fiber, and the preparation method of quantum dot-doped fiber may lead to important applications in optical interconnection, artificial intelligence, Internet of things, mobile electronics and so on.

Wavelength-Tunable Chirped Pulse Amplification System (1720 nm–1800 nm) Based on Thulium-Doped Fiber

Chirped pulse amplification (CPA) has been a commonly used methodology to obtain powerful ultrashort laser pulses ever since its first demonstration. However, wavelength-tunable CPA systems are much less common. Wavelength-tunable ultrashort and intense laser pulses are desirable in various fields such as nonlinear spectroscopy and optical parametric amplification. In this work, we report a 1720 nm–1800 nm tunable CPA system based on Tm-doped fiber. The tunable CPA system contains a seed laser, a pulse stretcher, two cascaded amplifiers and a pulse compressor. The dispersion-managed seed laser cavity emits wavelength-tunable laser pulses with pulse durations of several ps and spectral widths from 25 nm to 34 nm. After being stretched temporally to tens of ps, the laser pulses are then amplified in two-stage amplifiers and compressed in a Treacy-type compressor. At 1720 nm, the maximum average power of 126 mW is obtained with a pulse duration of 507 fs; at 1800 nm, the maximum average power of 264 mW is obtained with a pulse duration of 294 fs. The pulse repetition rates are around 22.7 MHz. We perform an analysis of the system design based on numerical simulations and go on to suggest further steps for improvement. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a tunable CPA system beyond 1.1 μm. Considering the specific wavelength range, this wavelength-tunable CPA system is highly desirable for biomedical imaging, sensing, and parametric amplifiers.

A low noise-figure hybrid optical amplifier by using second-order stimulated Raman scattering

A low noise-figure hybrid optical amplifier by using second-order stimulated Raman scattering

Polymer optical fiber amplifier based on all-inorganic perovskite quantum dots

The proliferation of polymer optical fibers (POFs) has opened multiple avenues of optical-based networks and sensing applications in the visible spectral range. However, the lack of efficient amplifiers significantly hinders their utilization in practical scenarios. As emerging gain media, halide perovskites have attracted considerable attention in exploring their practical applications. In this Letter, we investigated the optical gain properties of cesium lead bromide quantum dots (CsPbBr3 QDs), and by facet dip-coating, we realized a polymer optical fiber amplifier. Under a 400-nm, 163-fs Ti:Sapphire laser pumping, the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) thresholds of 1.6 and 20.1 μJ/cm2 were achieved through stripe pumping of a QDs-thin-film and end-pumping of a polymer-fiber facet dip-coated with the QDs, respectively. A gain coefficient of 232.2 ± 22.8 cm−1 was obtained using the variable stripe length method. By coupling a broadband continuous-wave light source into the POF as the signal, the optical gain behavior was studied with varying pump fluence and signal power density. More than 20 dB optical gain was achieved within the ASE wavelength region of 530–540 nm with a predicted theoretical maximum gain of 33.6 dB. The research verifies the feasibility of amplifying continuous-wave signals in the visible spectrum and potentially closing the research gap in visible-light optical-to-optical amplifiers. This opens the avenue for further research and innovations in practical polymer-based optical amplification for a plethora of applications, including all optical processing chips and short-range interconnects, as well as visible-light and underwater communications.

Quantum Dot‐Doped Optical Fibers

AbstractGain medium‐doped active optical fibers for optical amplification and long‐range transmission have triggered a lot of researches. Traditional rare‐earth ion‐doped active fibers have non‐adjustable emissions, narrow band luminescence, limited gain enhancement, and other challenges. The unique optical properties of quantum dots (QDs) can further improve the doped optical fibers in the light amplification capacity, temperature sensitivity and to gain a broad‐spectrum coverage and lower laser threshold and other superiorities. However, there are few systematic discussions on the development of the technologies and applications of those QD‐doped optical fibers. In this review, the optical properties, temperature characteristics and optical amplification mechanisms of QD‐doped optical fibers are outlined. Then, the preparation technologies and the applications of QD‐doped optical fibers are highlighted. Additionally, the existing challenges and future development prospects of QD‐doped optical fibers are discussed.

High-Sensitivity Differential Helmholtz Photoacoustic System Combined with the Herriott Multipass Cell and Its Application in Seed Respiration.

A highly sensitive photoacoustic detection system using a differential Helmholtz resonator (DHR) combined with a Herriott multipass cell is presented, and its implementation to sub-ppm level carbon dioxide (CO2) detection is demonstrated. Through the utilization of erbium-doped optical fiber amplifier (EDFA), the laser power was amplified to 150 mW. Within the multipass cell, a total of 22 reflections occurred, contributing to an impressive 33.6 times improvement in the system sensitivity. The normalized noise equivalent absorption coefficient (NNEA) was 8.64 × 10-11 cm-1·W·Hz-1/2 [signal-to-noise ratio, (SNR) = 1] and according to the Allan variance analysis, a minimum detection limit of 500 ppb could be achieved for CO2 at 1204 s, which demonstrates the long-term stability of the system. The system was applied to detect the respiration of rice and upland rice seeds. It is demonstrated that the system can monitor and distinguish the respiration intensity and respiration rate of different seeds in real time.

All-optical Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering swapping.

Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering, an important resource in quantum information, describes the ability of one party to influence the state of another party through local measurements. It differs from Bell nonlocality and entanglement due to its asymmetric property. EPR steering swapping allows two spatially independent parties to present EPR steering without direct interaction. Here, we theoretically propose an all-optical EPR steering swapping (AOSS) scheme based on low-noise high-broadband optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs). A low-noise high-broadband OPA is utilized to implement the function of Bell-state measurement without detection, avoiding the optic-electro and electro-optic conversions. After AOSS, one-way and two-way EPR steering between two independent optical modes can be obtained. Our scheme provides a guidance for the construction of a measurement-free, all-optical broadband quantum network utilizing EPR steering swapping.

Structural and Spectroscopic properties of Eu3+ doped SiO2–TiO2 nanoparticles for photonic applications

The Eu3+-doped TiO2 nanoparticles in sol gel silicate glasses of composition (80-x)SiO2 + 20TiO2 + 0.5xEu2O3, (SiTiEu) where x = 0.0 0.5, 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 mol%, have been prepared by sol-gel technique. The glass samples were investigated by thermos-gravimetric analysis (TGA/DTA), ATR-FTIR, XRD, SEM, TEM, EDX, optical absorption and photoluminescence emission spectroscopy at room temperature (RT). The absorption wavelength of TiO2 doped sol-gel silicate glass were red shifted due to a reduction in band gap energy with increasing annealing temperatures. According to the TEM images, all of the particles were spherical and had an average diameter is around 10 nm. The visible spectra of the Eu3+ doped TiO2 nanoparticles in sol-gel silicate glasses displayed characteristic PL emission 5D0→7FJ (J = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) transitions of Eu3+ ions at 370 nm excitation. The anatase TiO2:1.5Eu3+ nanocomposite showed high photoluminescence emission at 370 nm excitation, which was attributed to the f-f transitions of Eu3+. The hypersensitive 5D0→7F2 transition was responsible for the major red emission. From the recorded spectra, radiative parameters and Judd-Ofelt (JO) intensity parameters were computed. The Eu3+ co-doped TiO2 nanoparticles in sol-gel silicate glasses displayed emissions mostly in the red regions realized from a CIE chromaticity diagram. The results suggested that materials may be used as an optical material of technological importance such as display devices and also for optical amplifier.

Impact of pump-phase noise in PPLN-based optical parametric amplifier and wavelength converter for digital coherent transmission

Wideband signal amplification and optical signal processing with a high gain using an optical parametric amplifier based on a periodically poled LiNbO3 (PPLN) waveguide is attractive for constructing wideband optical fiber networks. We experimentally investigate the transfer characteristics of the phase noise of a pump laser in χ(2)-based optical parametric amplification and wavelength conversion on the basis of second-harmonic-generation and differential-frequency-generation processes. We also evaluate the effect of the transferred phase noise on signal quality in dispersion-unmanaged digital coherent fiber transmission systems. We show that the phase noise is transferred only to the wavelength-converted idler and does not affect the amplified signal even by using a pump laser with a MHz-order linewidth. We also show that the phase noise transferred to the idler light can have a similar impact on signal quality as equalization-enhanced phase noise (EEPN) in digital coherent transmission. The signal penalty including EEPN was evaluated with several pump lasers and at symbol rates of 32, 64, and 96 Gbaud. We also propose a method of using correlated pump lights between a wavelength converter pair to cancel out the transfer of phase noise.

Emerging near‐infrared luminescent materials for next‐generation broadband optical communications

AbstractThe rapid development of emerging technologies observed in recent years, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, mobile internet, big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Everything, are generating escalating demands for expanding the capacity density, and speed in next‐generation optical communications. This poses a significant challenge to existing communication techniques. Within this context, the integration of near‐infrared broadband, tunable, and high‐gain luminescent materials into silicon optical circuits or fiber architectures to transmit and modulate light shows enormous potential for advancing next‐generation communication techniques. Here, this review provides an overview of the recent breakthroughs in near‐infrared luminescent epitaxial/colloidal quantum dots, and metal‐active‐center‐doped materials for broadband optical amplifiers and tunable lasers. We also expound on efforts to enhance the bandwidth and gain of these materials‐based amplifiers and lasers, exploring the challenges associate with developing ultra‐broadband and high‐speed optical communication systems. Additionally, the potential applications in Fifth Generation Fixed Networks, integration with 5G and 6G wireless networks, compensation for current Si electronic based CMOS for high computing capability, and the prospects of these light sources for next‐generation optoelectronic devices are discussed.image

Improved relative gain in Nd3+doped GeO2-PbO glass with double waveguides irradiated by femtosecond laser micromachining and decorated with Au nanoparticles

The paper explores the effects of Au nanoparticle (NP) islands deposited by sputtering technique on the surface of Nd3+-doped GeO2-PbO glasses, with double-line waveguides, produced via femtosecond laser processing for photonics. A Ti:sapphire femtosecond laser operating at 800 nm was employed to inscribe the waveguides directly into the glass, 0.7 mm beneath the surface. These waveguides were structured as pairs of parallel lines separated 10 μm. Additional procedures were undertaken to position the waveguides on the glass surface where Au NPs were deposited. Refractive index change of 10−3 at 632 nm was observed in both horizontal and vertical directions. Similar results for the beam quality factors (Mx2 and My2) at 632 nm and 1064 nm indicated x, y-symmetrical guiding. Photoluminescence and relative gain growth were observed due to Au NP islands. The relative gain reached 3.0 dB/cm representing an increase of approximately 450 % when compared to samples without the Au NP islands, and was attributed to the local field growth in their vicinities. This study highlights the potential to change Nd3+-doped GeO2-PbO glasses optical properties with Au nanoparticle islands, opening up new and promising prospects for photonics and 1064 nm optical amplifiers.