Polarization-maintaining Fiber Ring Research Articles

Topological resonances in a Möbius ring resonator

A Möbius strip, fascinating for its unique topological property of being a one-side nonorientable surface, has inspired mathematicians, physicists, engineers, and artists for many centuries. In a coherent system, coherent waves on the nonorientable surfaces reveal rich topological dynamics due to the interplay of coherence and topology. Here we experimentally observe topological resonances in a Möbius ring resonator formed in a twisted optical fiber loop. The twisted polarization-maintaining fiber ring encourages the hybridization of two polarization states, giving rise to the crucial Berry phase. This geometrical phase leads to the frequency shifts of fiber resonant modes with a non-trivial fractional mode number. Moreover, the resonant modes are topological, only resonating with certain polarized modes with circular chirality. These topological features introduce geometrical factors into coherent wave resonances, paving the way for topological information processing for quantum information, and coherent wave dynamics.

Polarization and longitudinal modes of Möbius fiber ring lasers

Möbius optical cavities have attracted great interest for their unique topological properties. Here, the polarization and longitudinal modes of two types of Möbius fiber ring lasers are investigated. A theoretical model is established with Jones matrix to solve the polarization eigenmodes and longitudinal modes of a twisted polarization-maintaining fiber ring cavity. It is found that twisting the fiber axis causes polarization hybridization and a geometry-dependent phase, which induces a frequency shift to the longitudinal modes. The Möbius cases (180° and 90° splicing) are analyzed in detail, in which the 90° case leads to peculiar polarization and longitudinal mode properties. We believe the presented fiber ring laser provides a convenient platform to study lasers with a Möbius structure, and could enable further fiber laser applications.

Improvement of angle random walk of fiber-optic gyroscope using polarization-maintaining fiber ring resonator.

For an interferometric fiber-optic gyroscope (IFOG), the angle random walk, which represents the sensitivity of rotation detection, is mainly limited by the relative intensity noise (RIN) of a broadband source. Using a single-mode fiber ring resonator (SM-FRR) to filter the spectrum of a broadband light source is a common strategy for reducing the RIN at the proper IFOG frequency. However, this method depends on the polarization cross-coupling within the SM-FRR. We model the effect of polarization cross-coupling on the SM-FRR. Then, to further reduce the RIN, we introduce a polarization-maintaining fiber ring resonator (PM-FRR), which mitigates the effect of polarization cross-coupling on the SM-FRR. Using the PM-FRR as a spectrum filter, the RIN is reduced to -143 dB/Hz, with a reduction ratio of 25 dB, and the angle random walk in the IFOG is improved by over five times from 1.17 to 0.223 mdeg/h1/2 using a 2.1 km sensing coil.

Ultrafast PM fiber ring laser mode-locked by nonlinear polarization evolution with short NPE section segments

We demonstrate a nonlinear polarization evolution (NPE) mode-locked polarization maintaining (PM) Yb-doped fiber laser with short NPE section segments by setting proper splicing angle. With a theoretical analysis, we propose that an appropriate deviation splicing angle exists to maximize the adjustable range of transmission modulation. The simulation results are highly consistent with theoretical conclusions. Experimentally, using the optimal splicing angle predicted by the theoretical calculation, we have achieved an environmentally stable mode-locking fiber laser at 111-MHz repetition rate with corresponding pulse energy of 0.47 nJ. Additionally, the noise performance of this PM fiber laser is characterized. The measured RMS timing jitter and amplitude noise are 6.41 fs and 0.0052% respectively (1 kHz-10 MHz), which are competitive to the low phase noise performance of the typical fiber laser.

Distributed measurement of polarization mode coupling in fiber ring based on P-OTDR complete polarization state detection.

Using a quaternion method, the polarization mode-coupling coefficient can be derived from three components of the Stokes vectors at three adjacent points along a fiber. A complete polarization optical time-domain reflectometry scheme for polarization mode coupling distributed measurement in polarization-maintaining fiber ring is proposed based on the above theoretical derivations. By comparing the measurement results of two opposite incident directions and two orthogonal polarization axes of polarization-maintaining fiber rings with different lengths, the feasibility and repeatability of the measurement scheme are verified experimentally with a positioning spatial resolution of 1 meter.

Instantaneous frequency measurement of dissipative soliton resonant light pulses.

We measured the instantaneous frequency profile of two different dissipative soliton resonant (DSR) light pulses, the usual flat-top and less-common trapezoid-shaped light pulses. The DSR light pulses were provided by an ytterbium-doped polarization-maintaining fiber ring passively mode-locked laser using the adequately selected amount of net-normal dispersion. We confirmed that the DSR light pulses have a (moderately) low linear chirp across the pulse, except at the edges, where the chirp changes exponentially. This unique instantaneous frequency behavior can be succinctly resumed by the following parameters: linear chirp slope and leading and trailing chirp lifetimes. As the pump power increases, the linear chirp slope decreases, whereas the leading and trailing chirp lifetimes do not show an appreciable change. The results are compared with previous theoretical works.

Subkilohertz linewidth reduction of a DFB diode laser using self-injection locking with a fiber Bragg grating Fabry-Perot cavity.

A simple and low-cost 1550 nm semiconductor laser with subkilohertz intrinsic linewidth is experimentally demonstrated. A commercial distributed feedback diode laser is self-injection locked to the resonance transmission peaks of a fiber Bragg grating Fabry-Perot cavity through a polarization-maintaining fiber ring with the optical path length of 4 m, with the laser frequency noise suppressed by over 70 dB in the Fourier frequency band from 5 Hz and 1 kHz. The laser features an intrinsic Lorentzian linewidth of 125 Hz as well as a relative intensity noise of <-142 dBc/Hz above 2 MHz, and provides over 0.8 nm quasi-continuous tunability, which is suitable for advanced applications requiring a narrow linewidth laser with ultralow frequency noise.

Cross-splicing method for compensating fiber birefringence in polarization-maintaining fiber ring laser mode locked by nonlinear polarization evolution.

We propose a cross-splicing method, for the first time to our knowledge, to compensate the effect of fiber birefringence in a polarization-maintaining fiber ring laser mode locked by nonlinear polarization evolution. This method has been investigated numerically and experimentally. The results indicate that stable mode-locking pulses can be obtained in the cavity with this method; otherwise, no mode-locking states are achieved. The design processes of the laser cavity are presented. Pulses with single pulse energy of 2.1 nJ are generated at pump power of 460 mW. The spectral bandwidth and pulse duration are 17.5 nm and 11.7 ps, respectively. The tunability of the laser is also studied. The central wavelength can be tuned from 1023.2 to 1045.9 nm.

Dissipative soliton resonance in a full polarization-maintaining fiber ring laser at different values of dispersion.

We investigated the dissipative solitons resonance in an ytterbium-doped fiber ring laser in which all the elements are polarization maintaining (PM). A semiconductor saturable absorber mirror was used as a mode-locker. The cavity included a normal dispersion single-mode fiber (SMF) and an anomalous dispersion photonic crystal fiber. The change of the length of the PM SMF allows the variation of the net-normal dispersion of the cavity in the range from 0.022 ps2 to 0.262 ps2. As the absolute value of the net-normal dispersion increases from 0.022 ps2 to 0.21 ps2, a square-shaped single pulse transformed to a single right-angle trapezoid-shaped pulse, and, at the dispersion of 0.262 ps2, to multiple right-angle trapezoid-shaped pulses, per round-trip.

Observation of mode instability and coherence collapse in a single-frequency polarization-maintaining fiber ring laser

Mode instability acts as a common feature in single-frequency fiber ring lasers. The mechanism of coherence collapse by mode instability is theoretically analyzed and demonstrated with an unbalanced fiber Michelson interferometer utilizing phase modulation, which is illuminated by a single-frequency erbium-doped fiber ring laser. Multiform mode instability phenomena accompanied with coherence collapse are observed and discussed in detail by tracing the dynamics of the interference fringe visibility. The results show that mode instability would introduce extra phase noises like a false alarm to interferometric fiber optic sensing systems.

A stable multi-wavelength PM-EDF laser based on a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror and a TCF comb filter

A stable multi-wavelength polarization-maintaining erbium-doped fiber (PM-EDF) ring cavity laser employing a twin-core fiber (TCF) comb filter and a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror (NALM) is proposed and demonstrated. By appropriately adjusting the polarization controllers, the NALM as an amplitude equalizer can effectively reduce the mode competition caused by the homogeneous broadening gain medium in the PM-EDF. Under 150 mW pump power, up to 26 wavelength outputs within a 3 dB bandwidth are achieved and their signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is 39.5 dB. Besides, the TCF comb filter is experimentally fabricated using a length of 0.78 m TCF spliced between two segments of the single-mode fiber. The transmission spectra of the filter in experimental measurements are in accord with the results of theoretical analysis, and its wavelength spacing is 0.29 nm. Meanwhile, the power fluctuation and wavelength shift are within 0.1 dB and 0.02 nm, respectively. The experimental results indicate that the proposed multi-wavelength fiber laser performs with high stability at room temperature. In addition, the multi-wavelength laser with the TCF comb filter can offer more wavelengths in a 3 dB spectral range and higher SNR than one using a Sagnac loop filter, and the length of the filter is also reduced by more than six times.

Switchable Dual-Wavelength PM-EDF Ring Laser Based on a Novel Filter

A stable and switchable dual-wavelength polarization-maintaining erbium-doped fiber ring laser is proposed and demonstrated experimentally by using a novel filter, which is formed from dual-pass Mach-Zehnder interferometer incorporating a sagnac loop. By adjusting the polarization controllers, the output laser can be switched between single- and dual-wavelength. The wavelength spacing of the dual-wavelength can be tuned from 0.084 to 4.26 nm. Its 3-dB bandwidth and side mode suppression ratio are less than 0.015 nm and higher than 64 dB, respectively. In addition, the peak power fluctuation and wavelength shift are monitored to be less than 0.5 dB and 0.01 nm during an hour, respectively. The characteristics of the novel filter in experimental measurement accord with the result of theoretical analysis.

Phase-generated carrier demodulation scheme for fiber Fabry–Pérot interferometric sensor with high finesse

This paper presents a demodulation scheme using phase-generated carrier (PGC) for a fiber Fabry-Pérot interferometric (FFPI) sensor with high finesse. The FFPI is constructed by a polarization maintaining fiber ring resonator with dual-coupler (PMDC-FRR), which can eliminate the polarization induced fading phenomenon. Compared with the former phase demodulation methods, the PGC scheme in this paper does not assume a two-beam interferometric approximation for the Fabry-Pérot cavity, and can work at arbitrary value of finesse in theory. Two PMDC-FRRs with reflective coefficients of 0.5 and 0.9 are made in experiments for demodulation. Both the single-frequency and the wideband signals are successfully demodulated from the transmission intensities using the PGC demodulation scheme. The experimental results demonstrate that the PGC demodulation scheme is feasible for the FFPI sensor with high finesse. The effects of the reflective coefficient and the intensity loss to the finesse are also discussed.

Response characteristic analysis of polarization maintaining fiber ring resonator with dual-coupler for sensing application

A polarization maintaining fiber ring resonator with dual-coupler (PMDC-FRR) for sensing application is presented in this paper. Polarization maintaining directional fiber couplers and fiber loop are employed to eliminate the polarization fading in the fiber ring resonator. Three important characteristic parameters associated with the sensing application, which are the visibility of the output intensities, the free spectral range and the finesse, are discussed as functions of the coupler coefficients and the fiber loop length in detail. In addition, the critical drive voltage of the tunable laser to keep the output intensities stable is also analyzed, when the fiber ring resonator with dual-coupler is utilized as fiber sensor with phase modulation. A PMDC-FRR is designed practically in experiment with the power coupling coefficients of 0.5 and the loop length of 22 m. The experimental results provide sufficient arguments for the theoretical predicts. The theoretical and experimental analysis results will be useful to the sensing application of the PMDC-FRR.

All-optical switch and limiter based on nonlinear polarization in Mach–Zehnder interferometer coupled with a polarization-maintaining fiber-ring resonator

A novel all-optical switch based on nonlinear polarization mechanism using polarization-maintaining fiber ring with a polarization rotator is proposed. Optical switching with low threshold of mW order and optical limiting with broader limiting range, less fluctuation, higher damage threshold and response speed are demonstrated numerically. The deterioration of switching and the improvement of limiting originating from losses are also studied. Considering the tradeoff between switching power and bandwidth, the way to increase bandwidth is discussed.

CW-pumped polarization-maintaining Brillouin fiber ring laser: I. Self-structuration of Brillouin solitons

Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) of a cw-pump in a long optical fiber ring cavity generates for a given gain G, below a critical feedback Rcrit, a backward soliton Stokes pulse at the roundtrip repetition rate, through resonant three-wave interaction between the optical pump wave and backward Stokes wave, and a high frequency (GHz) axial acoustic wave. In Part I, we perform a systematic experimental and numerical exploration of the whole soliton localisation domain for a large set of (G,R) parameters, in a polarization-maintaining Brillouin fiber ring laser in the best conditions of stability and coherence, and we confirm the excellent quantitative agreement of the coherent three-wave model and the experiments.

CW-pumped polarization-maintaining Brillouin fiber ring laser: II. Active mode-locking by phase modulation

Stimulated Brillouin backscattering in a cw-pumped long optical polarization-maintaining fiber ring cavity excites spontaneous stable mode-locking. But the shortest pulses allowed by the Brillouin gain bandwidth imply an active mode-locking, which we have achieved by using a phase modulator inside the ring. The experiment is carried out in the infrared at 1.319μm, and in narrow frequency domains, close to N integer multiples of the ring FSR, we observe two type of mode-locking: either a maximum compression of the Brillouin solitons, or a stable splitting into N equally spaced pulses. Case N=3 is more detailed. Experiment implies a slight polarization modulation by the phase modulation. Simulations carried out through the coherent three-wave model are in very good agreement for both mode-locking mechanisms. Introduction of a small amplitude modulation together with the intra-cavity phase modulation satisfactorily explains the stable splitting domain as well as the compression domain.

Actively mode-locked 1.5-μm 10-GHz picosecond fiber laser using a monolithic semiconductor optical amplifier/electroabsorption modulator

We demonstrate a novel 10-GHz actively modelocked polarization-maintaining fiber ring laser that utilizes a single device for gain, loss modulation, optical isolation, and repetition rate adjustment. This monolithic device incorporates a semiconductor optical amplifier with an electroabsorption modulator and provides net gain of 2.1 dB. The repetition rate of the 1.5-μm picosecond pulsetrains can be tuned by 2 ppm through perturbation of the electroabsorption modulator reverse bias.

Subpicosecond solitons in an actively mode-locked fiber laser

Experimental results are presented for a study of the stability regime of an actively mode-locked polarizationmaintaining fiber ring laser used as a memory. Observations indicate that the pulse widths in the memory can be reduced (by soliton effects) by a factor of approximately 4.4 below the pulse widths predicted by standard active mode-locking theory. Stability regions for the solitons are mapped and compared with theoretical predictions.

Anisotropic polarization maintaining optical fiber ring resonators

Suppression of the polarization drift of optical fiber ring resonators is investigated both theoretically and experimentally by employing anisotropy in a polarization maintaining fiber ring. A general analytic expression for the transmission of the device is derived allowing the fiber modes to exhibit any combination of polarization crosstalk, differential loss or differential coupling. The analysis shows that a moderate level of ring anisotropy, such as that of 10 dB in line polarizer or polarization selective coupler, is sufficient to greatly suppress the drift of the eigenstates of polarization (ESOPs), finesse and resonant point, restoring the device's suitability for most practical applications. An inevitable consequence of introducing ring anisotropy is the loss of orthogonality of the ESOPs. This effect limits the anticipated benefit in high sensitivity applications. A practical anisotropic PMRR is demonstrated by inserting a thin film of nematic liquid crystal between the two halves of the polished coupler of the ring. This resonator demonstrates a polarization response immune to environmental perturbations.