Self-injection Feedback Research Articles

Tunable Narrow Linewidth Erbium-Doped Fiber Ring Laser Based on Saturable Absorber and Self-Injection Feedback

Tunable Narrow Linewidth Erbium-Doped Fiber Ring Laser Based on Saturable Absorber and Self-Injection Feedback

Single-frequency erbium-doped fiber laser based on self-injection feedback.

In this paper, a single-frequency erbium-doped fiber laser based on self-injection feedback is reported, which uses a high-reflectivity broadband fiber Bragg grating, an ordinary commercial high-doped erbium fiber and a low-reflectivity broadband fiber Bragg grating to form the main resonant cavity, and a stable narrow linewidth single-frequency laser output is achieved by connecting a single-mode fiber and a low reflectivity narrowband fiber Bragg grating to form self-injection feedback. Then, a saturated double-pass erbium-doped fiber amplifier and a saturable absorber were added to the self-injection optical path, which well suppressed the relative intensity noise and phase noise and the relaxation oscillation intensity was well suppressed by about 18.08 dB, and the phase noise was 36.7dBc·Hz-1 suppression, the edge-mode rejection ratio is increased by 13 dB, and the final laser linewidth is about 270 Hz, and the output power is 8.5 dBm.

2 μm Low-noise Narrow-linewidth Single-frequency Fiber Laser Based on Self-injection Locking Technique

Abstract Based on the self-injection locking technique, we demonstrate a low-noise and narrow linewidth of 2 μm single-frequency distributed Bragg reflection fiber laser with an optical self-injection feedback loop (OSIFL). The OSIFL consists of a piece of delay fiber and two polarization-maintaining optical couplers, which can effectively narrow down the linewidth and suppress the relative intensity noise (RIN) of the laser. It was observed that the laser linewidth was narrowed down from the initial 6.5 kHz to 1.6 kHz while the laser relaxation oscillation peak was reduced from -100.3 dB/Hz to -113.5 dB/Hz. Experimental results demonstrate that by extending the photon lifetime we can effectively narrow down the linewidth and significantly reduce the RIN of the laser. This research is of great significance for promoting the development and application of 2 μm single-frequency lasers.

All Polarization Maintaining Brillouin Erbium-Doped Fiber Laser With Sub-kHz Linewidth Using Saturated Absorber and Self-Injection Feedback

All Polarization Maintaining Brillouin Erbium-Doped Fiber Laser With Sub-kHz Linewidth Using Saturated Absorber and Self-Injection Feedback

Linewidth compression of a single longitudinal mode ytterbium-doped fiber laser based on femtosecond laser fabricated fiber Bragg gratings.

We demonstrate a single longitudinal mode distributed Bragg reflection (DBR) fiber laser by directly fabricating fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) on an ytterbium-doped fiber (YDF) using a femtosecond laser. A simple optical self-injection feedback method was used to effectively compress the linewidth and reduce relative intensity noise (RIN) of a single longitudinal mode DBR fiber laser. Further, we investigated the effect of self-injection feedback cavity length and reflectivity on linewidth compression and determined that the linewidth tends to decrease with the increase of the external cavity photon lifetime. By a self-injection feedback, the laser linewidth was compressed from 31.8kHz to 1.4kHz. Meanwhile, the relaxation oscillation peak from -103.2d B/H z at 1.51MHz was suppressed to -122.3d B/H z at 0.16MHz. This low-noise narrow linewidth single longitudinal mode fiber laser is expected to be a promising candidate for applications such as active detection of neutral atmosphere and distributed fiber sensing.

Narrow linewidth fiber laser with multiple unpumped EDF fiber loops and self-injection feedback

In this paper, we proposed a narrow linewidth single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) fiber laser, which was realized by employing a triple-cascaded unpumped erbium doped fiber (EDF) Sagnac loops structure with Rayleigh backscattering (RBS) feedback. Narrow linewidth SLM laser output can be achieved by using the unpumped EDF loops. However, it is generally difficult to achieve laser emission with a linewidth below 1 kHz and a power of tens of milliwatts. In this paper, we propose a fiber laser with multiple unpumped Er-doped fiber loops and self-injection feedback. The cascade of multi-unpumped Er-doped fiber rings is employed to reduce the linewidth of the laser, while the self-injection feedback based on RBS is used to improve the stability of the laser and further compress the laser linewidth. By only utilizing three unpumped Er-doped fiber rings cascaded, we obtain an output beam with a linewidth of 723.05 Hz and laser power of 21.52 mW with 0.30 dB fluctuation during a period time of 30 min at the pump power of 170.6 mW. After introducing the feedback mechanism based on RBS into the fiber laser, an output laser with a linewidth of 530.11 Hz and a laser power of 8.57 mW with 0.23 dB fluctuation in 30 min can be obtained at the pump power of 268.68 mW. Compared with the fiber laser with one unpumped Er-doped fiber ring, the linewidth is reduced more than two times.

Tunable Narrow-Linewidth Fiber Laser Based on the Acoustically Controlled Polarization Conversion in Dispersion Compensation Fiber

Researches on high coherence light sources always pursue fast tuning speed, linear tunability and persistence of narrow linewidths at different tuning channels. Fortunately, acousto-optical interaction (AOI) can be employed in the fast management of the lasing wavelength. Herein, we propose a fast tunable narrow-linewidth fiber laser assisted by the acoustically-induced polarization selection in dispersion compensation fiber (DCF). The lasing wavelength is determined by the acoustically-induced band-pass grating in DCF. The large dispersion slope of the DCF suppresses the bandwidth of the TM₀₁ peak to be less than 1 nm. The acousto-optic-controlled polarization conversion effectively restrains the acousto-optic frequency shift. With side longitudinal mode suppressions induced by the combintion of the self-injection feedback and saturable absorption filtering, the output laser successfully achieves the narrow-linewdith operation and owns a low relative intensity noise floor of −135 dB/Hz. By controlling the acoustic-wave frequency, the laser can be linearly tuned with a large wavelength range (over 20 nm, linear fitting R² reaches 0.99781), and the laser linewidths remain about ∼2 kHz in different tuning channels. The laser tuning dynamics under the acousto-optical controlling are experimentally revealed, and the lasing tuning response time is ∼800 μs.

A Longitude-Purification Mechanism for Tunable Fiber Laser Based on Distributed Feedback

Advanced applications in optical frequency metrology demand improved tunable lasers with high coherence. Herein, a tunable single-frequency fiber laser based on the longitude-purification induced by the distributed feedback has been demonstrated. The key device in the proposed laser structure is a distributed self-injection feedback structure (DSIFS) which function as a mode selector to have a robust frequency-domain mode suppression and wavelength adaptability. Our work is distinctly focused on the theoretical analysis of the formation process of single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) laser output and the wavelength adaptive characteristics in the DSIFS. In this experiment, the side mode suppression of the resonant longitudinal modes can be achieved in a fiber ring laser without any accurate control of the main cavity. The fiber laser obtained a compressed laser linewidth of 855 Hz, enhanced side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) of ∼67 dB, and frequency noise suppression of 40 dB. Furthermore, the fiber laser can be tuned over the entire flat gain region. The measured output power, wavelength and SMSR variations of the proposed laser over a long-term observation are less than 0.034 mW, 0.028 nm and 2.53 dB, respectively. In addition, the SLM operation of the laser can also be obtained at different pump power for every wavelength channel. Moreover, this method is applicable to any other gain-type lasers, indicating that the longitude-purification mechanism has a broad application prospect in other highly coherent tunable lasers.

Side mode suppression of SOA fiber hybrid laser based on distributed self-injection feedback

An ultra-narrow linewidth semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) fiber laser based on a novel configuration in which the main cavity is combined with a distributed external-cavity feedback is proposed and demonstrated. In this work, a high scattering fiber (HSF) is utilized as the weak feedback medium to suppress the side longitudinal mode of the SOA fiber hybrid laser. A model is established to theoretically reveal the side mode suppression effect of the distributed feedback. The experimental results demonstrate that the HSF effectively enhances the feedback intensity of the Rayleigh backscattered signal and successfully enhances the side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) of the main cavity to 58 dB. Likewise, the output linewidth is as low as 420 Hz. The laser frequency noise reaches ∼66.3 Hz2/Hz in the high frequency range, and the measured RIN is less than −130 dB/Hz at frequencies of over 0.5 MHz. This work presents an effective mechanism to regulate the longitudinal mode operation in highly coherent lasers.

InAs/GaAs quantum dot single-section mode-locked lasers on Si (001) with optical self-injection feedback.

Silicon based InAs quantum dot mode locked lasers (QD-MLLs) are promising to be integrated with silicon photonic integrated circuits (PICs) for optical time division multiplexing (OTDM), wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and optical clocks. Single section QD-MLL can provide high-frequency optical pulses with low power consumption and low-cost production possibilities. However, the linewidths of the QD-MLLs are larger than quantum well lasers, which generally introduce additional phase noise during optical transmission. Here, we demonstrated a single section MLL monolithically grown on Si (001) substrate with a repetition rate of 23.5 GHz. The 3-dB Radio Frequency (RF) linewidth of the QD-MLL was stabilized at optimized injection current under free running mode. By introducing self-injection feedback locking at a feedback strength of -24dB, the RF linewidth of MLL was significantly narrowed by two orders of magnitude from 900kHz to 8kHz.

InAs/InP Quantum Dash Semiconductor Coherent Comb Lasers and their Applications in Optical Networks

We report on the design, growth, and fabrication of InAs/InP quantum dash (QD) gain materials and their use in lasers for optical network applications. A noise performance comparison between QD and quantum well (QW) Fabry–Perot (F-P) lasers has been made. By using the QD gain material we have successfully developed and assembled C-band coherent comb laser (CCL) modules with an electrical fast feedback loop control system to ensure a targeted mode frequency spacing. The frequency spacing was maintained within ±100 ppm and the operation wavelengths locked on the desired ITU grid within 0.01 nm over a period of several months. We also investigated a 25-GHz C-band QD CCL with an external cavity self-injection feedback locking (SIFL) system to reduce the optical linewidth of each individual channel to below 200 kHz in the wavelength range from 1537.55 nm to 1545.14 nm. The RF mode beating signal 3-dB bandwidth was also reduced from 9 kHz to approximately 500 Hz with this SIFL system. These QD CCLs with ultra-low relative intensity noise (RIN), ultra-narrow optical linewidth, and ultra-low timing jitter are excellent laser sources for multi-terabit optical networks. Using a 34.2 GHz QD CCL we demonstrate 10.8 Tbit/s (16QAM 48 × 28 GBaud PDM) coherent data transmission over 100 km of standard single mode fiber (SSMF) and 5.4 Tbit/s (PAM-4 48 × 28 GBaud PDM) aggregate data transmission capacity over 25 km of SSMF with error-free operation.

Ultra-Low Timing Jitter of Quantum Dash Semiconductor Comb Lasers With Self-Injection Feedback Locking

We compare the timing jitter of a mode-locked InAs/InP quantum dash (QD) coherent comb laser (CCL) with and without an external cavity self-injection feedback locking (SIFL) system. The jitter is determined through a measurement of the first harmonic of the RF power spectrum of the laser output detected using a fast photodiode. A significant reduction in timing jitter is observed in the laser with the external cavity SIFL. A pulse to pulse root-mean-square time jitter of 1.56 fs is achieved for the laser with the external cavity SIFL. This low timing jitter is a promising light source for the next generation high-speed coherent networking systems and all-optical signal processing. We demonstrate results of a double polarization 16-QAM data format transmission system at a symbol rate of 25 GBd using more than 30 individual channels of the QD CCL. An error vector magnitude of 5.8% and bit error rate of 3.0 × 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-9</sup> were obtained. And, 6.0 Tb/s (16QAM 30 × 25 Gbd PDM) coherent transmission is achieved.

Ultra-narrow linewidth quantum dot coherent comb lasers with self-injection feedback locking

We have used an external cavity self-injection feedback locking (SIFL) system to simultaneously reduce the optical linewidth of over 39 individual wavelength channels of an InAs/InP quantum dot (QD) coherent comb laser (CCL). Linewidth reduction from a few MHz to less than 200 kHz is observed. Measured phase noise spectra clearly indicate a significant decrease in phase noise in the frequency range above 2 kHz. The RF beating signal between two adjacent channels also shows a substantial reduction in 3-dB linewidth from 10 kHz to 300 Hz with the SIFL system, and a corresponding drop in baseline level (-27 dB to -50 dB).

Dual-cavity feedback assisted DFB narrow linewidth laser

Single longitudinal mode (SLM) distributed feedback (DFB) lasers with a linewidth lower than a few kHz find applications in many coherent detection systems. In this paper, we proposed and experimentally demonstrated a novel method to compress the linewidth of a SLM DFB laser by utilizing a dual-cavity feedback structure (DCFS). The DCFS first provides optical self-injection feedback to compress the laser linewidth, and then the two feedback lengths are carefully optimized to achieve SLM output via the Vernier principle and the suppression of modes overlapping between two cavities. The linewidthes of 1 MHz and 200 kHz were successfully compressed to ~2.7 and 1.5 kHz with a side mode suppression ratio of 38 and 45 dB, respectively. The stability of the DCFS output power can be controlled within ~0.21%. Our method provides a simple, effective, low cost way to achieve DFB linewidth compression, which will greatly improve the performance of coherent detection systems using DFB laser as sources.

Rayleigh backscattering: a method to highly compress laser linewidth

Ultra-narrow linewidth laser with several hundred hertz at room temperature has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years and played a critical role in both optical sensing and communication fields. In this paper, a new method based on Rayleigh backscattering to highly compress the laser linewidth was proposed and demonstrated theoretically and experimentally. By theoretical analysis and simulation, Rayleigh backscattering can be collected in any waveguide structure and all wave bands, which could have a revolutionary impact on the field of laser. A single-longitudinal mode fiber ring laser with 130-Hz linewidth was achieved with self-injection feedback structure at normal atmospheric temperature. The linewidth compression based on Rayleigh backscattering lies in the fact that laser linewidth after scattering is narrower than that of incident light in high Rayleigh scattering structure. The self-rejection feedback method expanding free spectra range of laser cavity simultaneously was used to further suppress the mode-hopping and stabilizing output. Experimental results showed that the laser linewidth can be easily narrowed to hundreds of hertz with side-mode suppression up to 75 dB. This agrees with the theoretical analysis and simulation results qualitatively.

Switchable narrow linewidth single-longitudinal mode erbium fiber laser by using saturable-absorber filter and cavity loss control

A simple single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber ring laser is proposed and demonstrated at first by using an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) as wavelength filter. Owing to the two sub-ring cavities with different cavity losses, equalized dual-wavelength output can be achieved easily utilizing cavity loss control. The SLM operation is guaranteed by self-injection feedback mechanism under low pump power. In order to improve the dual-wavelength output power, a saturable-absorber (SA) based on a 4m unpumped EDF is inserted into the main cavity to guarantee the SLM operation under high pump power. The performance of the laser outputs has been experimental studied and all the output wavelengths have a narrow linewidth output.

Single-longitudinal-mode fiber ring laser using internal lasing injection and self-injection feedback

A single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) fiber ring laser is demonstrated by introducing internal lasing injection and self-injection feedback. Internal lasing, generated in an auxiliary cavity, interacts with the laser oscillation in a main cavity to suppress mode hopping. Self-injection feedback loops are incorporated in the main cavity to serve as laser mode filters. Neither an ultra-narrow bandpass filter nor a precise control for laser cavity length is required in achieving stable SLM operation.

Stability analysis of self-injection-locked oscillators

This paper addresses the stability analysis of the self-injection-locked oscillators. The analysis is developed for arbitrary self-injection feedback loops and illustrated with the specific case of a simple time-delay cable. It is shown that the output phase stability in self-injection-locked oscillators depends on the feedback loop delay and the types of oscillator circuits, which are represented by equivalent parallel- or series-resonant oscillator models. The self-injection-locked technique can also be used to test the oscillator circuit model when the self-coupling phase is known. The theory is verified by using a self-injection-locked GaAs MESFET oscillator operating at X-band with delay loops.

Phase noise in self-injection-locked oscillators - Theory and experiment

Phase-noise analysis of the self-injection-locked oscillator is presented in this paper. The analysis is developed for different oscillator models and arbitrary self-injection feedback loops. The results are illustrated with specific cases of simple time-delay cable and a high-Q factor resonator. It is shown that the behavior of the phase noise is similar to an oscillator locked to an external low phase-noise source. The output phase noise can be reduced at the noise offset frequency near the carrier frequency, and returning to the free-running oscillator noise far from the carrier frequency for certain stable feedback delay ranges. The phase-noise reduction is affected by the self-injection signal strength and feedback transfer function for different oscillator equivalent-circuit models. The theory is verified by using a self-injection-locked GaAs MESFET oscillator operating at the X-band with delay cable loops. The self-injection-locked technique may be used to improve the phase noise of the existing oscillators.

Single-longitudinal-mode operation of a grating-based fiber-ring laser using self-injection feedback

A fiber Bragg grating- (FBG-) based fiber-ring laser that utilizes the transmitted light of the FBG as self-injection feedback for single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) oscillation is proposed and demonstrated. This laser is simply constructed by means of feeding back the transmitted light of the FBG and is coupled into the main ring cavity through an optical coupler. The self-injection feedback is the key to ensuring SLM laser oscillation. The SLM operation principle is discussed in detail, and a SLM laser with output power of 6.6 dBm, an optical signal-to-noise ratio of 57 dB at 1549.19 nm, and a short-term linewidth of 3.5 kHz is reported.