Laser Relaxation Oscillation Frequency Research Articles

Simultaneously enhancing capacity and security in free-space optical chaotic communication utilizing orbital angular momentum

Optical chaotic signals emitted from an external-cavity feedback or injected laser diode enable small-signal information concealment in a noise-like carrier for secure optical communications. Due to the chaotic bandwidth limitation resulting from intrinsic relaxation oscillation frequency of lasers, multiplexing of optical chaotic signal, such as wavelength division multiplexing in fiber, is a typical candidate for high-capacity secure applications. However, to our best knowledge, the utilization of the spatial dimension of optical chaos for free-space secure communication has not yet been reported. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a free-space all-optical chaotic communication system that simultaneously enhances transmission capacity and security by orbital angular momentum (OAM) multiplexing. Optical chaotic signals with two different OAM modes totally carrying 20 Gbps on–off keying signals are secretly transmitted over a 2 m free-space link, where the channel crosstalk of OAM modes is less than −20 dB, with the mode spacing no less than 3. The receiver can extract valid information only when capturing approximately 92.5% of the OAM beam and correctly demodulating the corresponding mode. Bit error rate below the 7% hard-decision forward error correction threshold of 3.8×10−3 can be achieved for the intended recipient. Moreover, a simulated weak turbulence is introduced to comprehensively analyze the influence on the system performance, including channel crosstalk, chaotic synchronization, and transmission performance. Our work may inspire structured light application in optical chaos and pave a new way for developing future high-capacity free-space chaotic secure communication systems.

Parameter Optimization for Modulation-Enhanced External Cavity Resonant Frequency in Fiber Fault Detection

Fiber fault detection is crucial for maintaining the quality of optical communication, especially in well-established optical access networks with extended distances and a growing number of subscribers. However, the increasing insertion loss in fiber links presents challenges for traditional fault-detection methods in capturing fault echoes. To overcome these limitations, we propose a modulation-enhanced external-cavity-resonant-frequency method that utilizes a laser for fault echo reception, providing improved sensitivity compared to traditional photodetector-based methods. Our previous work focused on analyzing key parameters, such as sensitivity and spatial resolution, but did not consider practical aspects of selecting optimal modulation parameters. In this study, we develop a model based on Lang–Kobayashi rate equations for current-modulated optical feedback lasers and validate it through experimental investigations. Our findings reveal that optimal detection performance is achieved with a modulation depth of 0.048, a frequency sweeping range of 0.6 times the laser relaxation oscillation frequency, and a frequency sweeping step of 0.1 times the external cavity resonant frequency.

Stable period-one oscillations in a semiconductor laser under optical feedback from a narrowband fiber Bragg grating.

Period-one (P1) oscillations in a semiconductor laser under optical feedback from a narrowband fiber Bragg grating (FBG) are numerically investigated. FBG feedback enhances the stability of P1 oscillations compared to the conventional mirror feedback in the form of P1 microwave linewidth and phase noise reduction and residual noise peaks suppression. In the proposed scheme, the FBG has a narrow bandwidth smaller than the laser relaxation oscillation frequency. Then it effectively suppresses the coherence collapse of the laser by filtered feedback. Hence it can keep the laser in P1 operation even under relatively strong feedback. Besides, a uniform FBG has a comb-filtered reflectivity spectrum with a main lobe surrounded by several side lobes. Hence it can limit the external cavity modes by each lobe. As a result, FBG feedback can reduce microwave linewidth and phase noise by sustaining stronger feedback power and improve side-peak suppression ratio (SPSR) by filtering external cavity modes. The effects of stabilization are enhanced by properly increasing grating bandwidth. By fine-tuning the feedback delay time, the microwave linewidth can be reduced to a local minimum which reveals the optimal locking between P1 frequency and one of the external cavity modes. Increasing the feedback delay time, the local minimum linewidth can be further reduced. FBG feedback reduces the microwave linewidth by up to more than an order of magnitude and improves the SPSR by up to more than two orders of magnitude than mirror feedback using the same delay time.

Doppler-shifted laser self-mixing interferometry for enhanced detection sensitivity

ABSTRACTLaser self-mixing interferometry (SMI) is a well-known measurement technique having been applied to the fields of geometrical quantities detection, medical treatment and industry manufacturing. Its detection sensitivity can be improved by frequency shifting towards the laser's relaxation oscillation frequency (ROF), which has always been implemented by a pair of acousto-optic modulators (AOM). This manuscript presents a novel method based on Doppler effect for frequency shifting, which is based on a rotating disk and has the advantages of convenient adjustment and low cost. The theoretical analysis in the form of Doppler shift and time-delayed rate equations is followed, and simulative and experimental results are included to prove its validity. To our knowledge, this technique has not been used in practice till now, and the proposed structure, with these advantages, can find significant applications in designing high performance SMI sensors, and can extend SMI measurement to more kinds of non-cooperative surfaces.

Self-Sustained Laser Pulsation in Active Optomechanical Devices

We propose an optomechanical laser based on III-V compounds which exhibits self-pulsation in the presence of a dissipative optomechanical coupling. In such a laser cavity, radiation pressure drives the mechanical degree of freedom and its back-action is caused by the mechanical modulation of the cavity loss rate. Our numerical analysis shows that even in a wideband gain material, such dissipative coupling couples the mechanical oscillation with the laser relaxation oscillations process. Laser self-pulsation is observed for mechanical frequencies below the laser relaxation oscillation frequency under sufficiently high optomechanical coupling factor.

Experimental determination of key parameters in the spin-flip model of 1550 nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser

Spin-flip model (SFM) is a mostly used approach to analyzing the nonlinear dynamics of vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL), and therefore the value selections of some key parameters in this model are crucial. In this work, based on experimentally measured dynamical characteristics of a 1550 nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (1550 nm-VCSEL) under free running and parallel optical injection, some key parameters (field decay rate k, total carrier decay rate N, linewidth enhancement factor , active medium birefringence rate p, spin relaxation rate s, and active medium linear dispersion rate a) are estimated. Through experimentally measuring the noise spectrum of the laser, the relaxation oscillation frequency and the damping rate of the relaxation oscillations are calculated, and the photon lifetime can be preliminary estimated. After further amending the photon lifetime by considering the effect of the gain saturation on the damping rate of the relaxation oscillations, the value of k is determined. Based on the function relation between the laser relaxation oscillation frequency and the electrical pumping, the value of N is obtained. By experimentally acquiring the dynamical distribution mapping of the laser under parallel optical injection, the minimum Hopf bifurcation point of the Hopf bifurcation curve can be found, and then the value of is roughly estimated. According to the frequency difference between the two polarization components of the laser in the measured optical spectrum, the value of p can be calculated. The value of s is obtained by using the relationship between s and p. On the basis of the above determined parameter values, the value of a can be specified by numerically simulating the optical spectrum of the laser and comparing with experimentally obtained results. Moreover, by comparing the experimentally measured dynamical mapping of optical injection VCSEL with corresponding dynamical mapping simulated on the basis of the above mentioned parameters, the value of is rectified. Finally, further simulated results agree with relevant experimental observations.

Fast photonic information processing using semiconductor lasers with delayed optical feedback: Role of phase dynamics

Semiconductor lasers subject to delayed optical feedback have recently shown great potential in solving computationally hard tasks. By optically implementing a neuro-inspired computational scheme, called reservoir computing, based on the transient response to optical data injection, high processing speeds have been demonstrated. While previous efforts have focused on signal bandwidths limited by the semiconductor laser's relaxation oscillation frequency, we demonstrate numerically that the much faster phase response makes significantly higher processing speeds attainable. Moreover, this also leads to shorter external cavity lengths facilitating future on-chip implementations. We numerically benchmark our system on a chaotic time-series prediction task considering two different feedback configurations. The results show that a prediction error below 4% can be obtained when the data is processed at 0.25 GSamples/s. In addition, our insight into the phase dynamics of optical injection in a semiconductor laser also provides a clear understanding of the system performance at different pump current levels, even below solitary laser threshold. Considering spontaneous emission noise and noise in the readout layer, we obtain good prediction performance at fast processing speeds for realistic values of the noise strength.

Bifurcation to nonlinear polarization dynamics and chaos in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

In this contribution we provide an in depth theoretical analysis of the bifurcations leading to nonlinear polarization dynamics in a free-running vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). We detail the sequence of bifurcations that occurs when increasing the injection current, and which brings the laser from linear to elliptical polarization emission and then self-pulsating or even more complex chaotic dynamics of the light intensity. Continuation techniques allow us to follow the stable and unstable limit cycle solutions emerging from Hopf bifurcations, and therefore to interpret the frequency of the self-pulsating polarization dynamics. The fundamental frequency of the pulsating dynamics is either close to the laser relaxation oscillation frequency or close to the linear-birefringence-induced polarization mode frequency splitting, depending on the laser parameters. A systematic analysis of the parameter space allows us to identify two scenarios that are in excellent qualitative agreement with those reported in recent experiments. Our results provide, moreover, evidence for an interesting polarization mode hopping mechanism, i.e., a so-called deterministic mode hopping where the laser exhibits a chaotic and therefore random-like hopping between two states that are elliptically polarized and nonorthogonal.

The effect of the relaxation oscillation frequency of chaotic semiconductor laser on the rate of random sequence

In this paper, chaotic light generated by semiconductor laser with optical feedback is employed as physical entropy source to generate high-speed random sequence. The relationship between autocorrelation coefficient of chaotic signal and run number of random sequence is analyzed. Based on the analysis, the changes of random sequence run number are further investigated at different ratios between laser relaxation oscillation frequency fr and random sequence generation rate fn. The results show that random sequence run can easily meet the requirement for run test of NIST SP800-22 when the ratio between fr and fn satisfies the equation of fr/fn=(2k+1)/4. When k in the equation is equal to 1, the maximal rate fn=4fr/3 of random sequence is obtained.

Chaos synchronization in semiconductor lasers with polarization-rotated optical feedback

Chaotic oscillations of the transverse magnetic (TM) mode, which is not a common lasing mode, are excited by using polarization-rotated optical feedback from the transverse electric (TE) mode in a semiconductor laser. In our previous paper, we found that the dynamics were strongly dependent on their RF components under the condition of moderate optical feedback from the TE mode to the TM mode and that they were divided into three RF regions; low-pass filtered signals with a lower frequency than the laser relaxation oscillation frequency, intermediate RF components including the relaxation oscillation frequency, and high-pass filtered signals with a higher frequency higher than the relaxation oscillation frequency. Depending on the frequency bands, the laser outputs showed different correlations. In the present study, using such schemes, the polarization-rotated beam from a transmitter laser (i.e., the rotated TE-mode beam of a transmitter laser) is injected into a receiver laser. We experimentally observe chaos synchronization in accordance with the dynamics of RF components on the transmitter laser side. We also perform numerical calculations using a model and obtain good agreement between the theoretical and experimental results.

Intensity noise and relaxation oscillation of a fiber-laser sensor array integrated in a single fiber

We modeled the intensity noise of a distributed-feedback fiber laser (DFB-FL) with external laser injection. The transfer function for injected power perturbation was obtained. Simulation indicates that the laser relaxation oscillation frequency is not affected by external laser injection and is determined by the laser pump power, which provides a promising way to investigate the actual pump power budget over the whole wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) fiber-laser sensor array integrated in a single fiber. The intensity noise enhancement for each sensing unit thus can be evaluated exactly, and we observe an increase of 9dB in the intensity noise level for two DFB-FLs incorporated in a WDM fiber-laser array.

All-optical control of clock frequency division using injection-locked Fabry–Perot laser diode

All-optical clock-division from 10 to 5 GHz has been demonstrated based on period doubling in an injection-locked Fabry–Perot laser diode. The division process can be controlled by additional light injection through optical tuning of the laser relaxation oscillation frequency. A response time within tens of picoseconds has been obtained. By adjusting the DC bias, the clock-divider can also operate under different input frequencies from 8 to 11 GHz.

Simple dynamic model of all-optical gain-clamped erbium-doped fiber amplifiers

A simple dynamic model of laser-gain clamped erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) using ordinary differential equations is presented. The model not only provides a fast means of calculating EDFA gain dynamics, but also shows explicitly how the laser relaxation oscillation frequency and damping constant are affected by design parameters through analytical expressions. It is shown that the dynamic power excursion caused by relaxation oscillations can be reduced by increasing the oscillation frequency. The simplified model has two limitations: first, the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) spectrum is not fully resolved and the noise figure can not be studied; second, the effect of spectral hole burning, which also causes gain excursion, can not be modeled. The first limitation can be removed by ASE-resolved modeling, where the concept of average inversion is also utilized to save computing time.

Stability analysis of semiconductor laser with phase-conjugate feedback

The stability of the output power of a semiconductor laser with phase-conjugate feedback (PCF) is studied by numerical simulations based on the rate equations. We investigated the critical reflectivity at which the stable fixed output power evolves into periodic oscillation. As a result, we found that the critical reflectivity shows a periodic structure against the external cavity length and the stability is much enhanced at the periodic peak positions. The stability and dynamic behavior of a semiconductor laser with PCF are compared with those for conventional optical feedback. It is also found that the periods of the nearby peaks correspond to the frequency of the laser relaxation oscillation frequency and the stable peaks for the PCF are located at external lengths completely out of phase from those for the conventional feedback. Linear stability analysis using the rate equations is performed and the theoretical background for the stability is also given.

A novel architecture of a balanced fiber‐optic communication link for laser rin reduction

AbstractThis article presents a novel architecture of a balanced optical communication link intended to reduce the effect of the transmitter laser RIN on the total noise figure and dynamic range of the link. The degree of noise reduction depends on the balancing of amplitude and phase in the two arms of the link and on the modulation frequency relative to the laser relaxation oscillation frequency. © 1993 John Wiley & sons, Inc.

Measurement of the stimulated emission cross section for the /sup 4/F/sub 3/2/-/sup 4/I/sub 13/2/ transition of Nd/sup 3+/ in YAlO/sub 3/ crystal

A method for the simultaneous measurement of the stimulated emission cross section and fluorescence lifetime by studying the relation between laser parameters and the laser relaxation oscillation frequency is discussed. The stimulated emission cross section for the /sup 4/F/sub 3/2/-/sup 4/I/sub 13/2/ transition of Nd/sup 3+/ ion in YAP crystal was measured to be (22+or-1)*10/sup -20/ cm/sup 2/. >