Spectral Shaper Research Articles

Numerical investigation of the fractional-soliton mode-locked fiber laser.

We propose and numerically investigate a fractional-soliton mode-locked fiber laser by utilizing an intracavity spectral pulse shaper (SPS). The fiber laser can generate stable fractional-soliton pulses for three different Lévy index α (1 < α < 2), whose profiles are all close to the sech shape. We find that the positions of Kelly sidebands, pulse energy, and peak power of the emitted fractional pulses conform to three theoretical expressions, respectively. The numerical results are in good agreement with the theoretical analyses. In addition, the intracavity dynamics of the fractional pulses have been discussed. Our findings not only deepen the fundamental understanding of temporal fractional soliton but also provide a novel, to the best of our knowledge, approach to generating stable ultrashort fractional pulses.

Pure-high-even-order dispersion bound solitons complexes in ultra-fast fiber lasers

Temporal solitons have been the focus of much research due to their fascinating physical properties. These solitons can form bound states, which are fundamentally crucial modes in fiber laser and present striking analogies with their matter molecules counterparts, which means they have potential applications in large-capacity transmission and all-optical information storage. Although traditionally, second-order dispersion has been the dominant dispersion for conventional solitons, recent experimental and theoretical research has shown that pure-high-even-order dispersion (PHEOD) solitons with energy-width scaling can arise from the interaction of arbitrary negative-even-order dispersion and Kerr nonlinearity. Despite these advancements, research on the bound states of PHEOD solitons is currently non-existent. In this study, we obtained PHEOD bound solitons in a fiber laser using an intra-cavity spectral pulse shaper for high-order dispersion management. Specifically, we experimentally demonstrate the existence of PHEOD solitons and PHEOD bound solitons with pure-quartic, -sextic, -octic, and -decic dispersion. Numerical simulations corroborate these experimental observations. Furthermore, vibrating phase PHEOD bound soliton pairs, sliding phase PHEOD bound soliton pairs, and hybrid phase PHEOD bound tri-soliton are discovered and characterized. These results broaden the fundamental understanding of solitons and show the universality of multi-soliton patterns.

Amplification of femtosecond pulses with AI-assisted spectral phase modulation

We report our investigation on ultrashort laser pulse optimization using an AI algorithm in a system consisting of a mode-locked oscillator, a spectral phase shaper, and a highly nonlinear amplifier. We analyzed the performance of the pulse optimization process as a function of two main parameters: the resolution of spectral phase modulation and the number of agents in the algorithm. We showed that the algorithm could find an optimum phase profile for the seed pulse, which allowed for a reduction of the FWHM of the amplified pulse by 10 fs (from 46 to 36 fs), and significantly reduced the intensity of the side-pulse by a factor of 4.6. Importantly, the algorithm used does not require any training and optimizes the pulse shape without any knowledge about the input pulse parameters or the parameters of the amplifier. We believe the proposed system might be a convenient test bed for evaluating various AI-based algorithms in a pulse optimization task.

Spectrum on demand light source (SOLS) for advanced photovoltaic characterization.

We report a multi-purpose spectrum-on-demand light source (SOLS), conceived primarily but not exclusively for the multiple and advanced characterization of photovoltaic (PV) materials and devices. The apparatus is a spectral shaper illumination device, providing a tunable and spectrally shaped light beam produced by modulating the intensity and/or wavelength range of a primary light source. SOLS stands out from the state of the art because it produces almost any spectrum on demand and delivers two types of output: a spectrally shaped and spatially homogeneous beam over its cross section for areal illumination or a spatially and spectrally split beam into its wavelength components, a unique capability suited to characterize lateral-tandem (Rainbow) solar cells. The tuneability from broadband to narrowband illumination enables two characterization devices into one, namely, a solar simulator for the determination of the power conversion efficiency and an external quantum efficiency measuring system. We expect the SOLS setup to accelerate material screening, enabling the discovery and optimization of novel multi-component materials and devices, in particular for emergent PV technologies like organic, metal halide perovskites, or multi-junction geometries, as well as novel PV applications such as indoors, building integrated, or agrivoltaics, among others.

High-resolution reconfigurable RF signal spectral processor.

Recent developments in microwave photonic filters (MPFs) offer superior properties for radio frequency (RF) signal processing, such as large instantaneous bandwidth, high resolution and multifunctional shapes. However, it is quite challenging to realize two or more characteristics simultaneously to meet the diverse needs in complex electromagnetic environment. In this paper, we propose a reconfigurable RF signal spectral processor with both large instantaneous bandwidth and high resolution. In the proposed spectral processor, sufficient taps supplied by an optical frequency comb (OFC) offer a large instantaneous bandwidth to process broadband RF signals. Flexible tap coefficients can be obtained by manipulating an optical spectral shaper (OSS), which provides excellent reconfigurability. This tap-by-tap manipulation is realized with a high resolution of hundreds of megahertz, allowing precise shape configuration of the response. In the experiment, we demonstrate a flat-top response with a wide bandwidth of 7.1 GHz. Reconfigurable features such as tunable bandwidth, adjustable center frequency and diverse shapes are also shown. In particular, the measured frequency resolution of 96.5 MHz demonstrates the ability for precise configuration.

Simultaneous Generation of Two Negatively Correlated Linearly Frequency-Modulated Pulses Based on an Integrated Anti-Reflection Spectral Shaper

Grating-based spectral shaping (SS) combined with wavelength-to-time (WTT) mapping has proved to be an essential approach to the photonic generation of linearly frequency-modulated (LFM) pulses due to its potential to yield the large time-bandwidth product (TBWP) and to be fully integrated. One of the most challenging issues of chip-level integration is the grating-induced reflection which may significantly impact the laser source. Since the on-chip nonreciprocal devices such as optical isolators and circulators remain difficult to realize, a silicon-integrated anti-reflection spectral shaper based on a Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) comprising two linearly chirped grating-assisted contra-directional couplers (LCGA-CDCs) has been proposed and demonstrated. Thanks to the isolation between the input and output ports of the contra-directional couplers, the reported shaper presents an effective suppression of the reflecting power returned to its input port with a measured rejection ratio of around −10 dB covering the entire C-band. To predict the instantaneous frequency responses of the generated microwave pulses, an equivalent asymmetric MZI configuration with wavelength-dependent length difference has also been introduced to explain the mechanism of SS. Two negatively correlated LFM waveforms with up-chirped profiles and large TBWPs of 45.60 and 53.52 are simultaneously generated using a fabricated sample. Our work paves the way for an all-optical integration of the photonic-assisted isolator-free LFM pulse generation, presenting great potential for multiple application scenarios in pulsed radar systems.

Manipulating Explosion Dynamics of Dissipative Soliton in an Ultrafast Fiber Laser with Dynamic Dispersion Engineering

AbstractAs one of the most fascinating phenomena in dissipative systems, soliton explosions have been intensively investigated in the field of nonlinear optics owing to their intriguing dynamics. However, few efforts have been dedicated to precisely manipulating the dynamics of soliton explosion in fiber lasers. Herein, the exploding dynamics of dissipative soliton in a passively mode‐locked fiber laser by engineering the intracavity dispersion with a spectral pulse shaper is investigated. It is found that the exploding interval of the dissipative soliton can be well manipulated by dynamically engineering the cavity dispersion. The real‐time spectral dynamics of the soliton explosions are investigated by virtue of the dispersion Fourier transform (DFT) technique. The experimental results are further reproduced by the numerical simulations. These findings demonstrated that the dispersion engineering approach is a promising way to manipulate the soliton exploding behavior, and will also shed new light into the dynamics of soliton explosions in dissipative optical systems.

Optical Spectral Shaping Based on Reconfigurable Integrated Microring Resonator-Coupled Fabry–Perot Cavity

We demonstrate a multifunctional optical spectral shaper on a silicon photonic chip. The proposed structure is composed of a tunable microring resonator (MRR) and three tunable Sagnac loop mirrors (SLMs), which can be regarded as a large SLM incorporating an MRR-coupled Fabry–Perot (FP) cavity. To realize flexible tuning, thermo-optically tunable Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) couplers are used to replace conventional directional couplers with fixed coupling coefficients. By controlling the tunable MZI couplers, the proposed structure can be reconfigured as various functional structures including an all-pass MRR with tunable coupling regime, a tunable FP cavity, an SLM incorporating FP cavity, and an MRR-coupled FP cavity. This flexible reconfiguration allows for multifunctional optical spectral shaping including tunable comb filtering, Fano and EIT-like resonances. In particular, the complementary flat-top comb filtering responses can be theoretically obtained in the two ports of this device with same free spectral range (FSR) value, which enable the (de)interleaver operation. The experimental results show that the implemented all-pass MRR has a maximum extinction ratio (ER) of 38.9 dB and the corresponding quality factor is 6.5×10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">4</sup> . The comb filter based on configured FP cavity can be switched from narrowband response (0.06 nm) to wideband flat-top response (0.23 nm), with ERs up to 10.6 dB and 22 dB, respectively. Moreover, a dynamic conversion between Lorentz, EIT, and Fano resonance line shapes based on the coupled resonant system can be realized. The demonstrated integrated device holds great potential for various applications such as filtering and switching in optical wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) communication networks.

Spectrally tunable high-power Yb:fiber chirped-pulse amplifier

Tailoring the properties of the driving laser to the need of applications often requires compromises among laser stability, high peak and average power levels, pulse duration, and spectral bandwidth. For instance, spectroscopy with optical frequency combs in the extreme/visible ultraviolet spectral region requires a high peak power of the near-IR driving laser, and therefore high average power, pulse duration of a few tens of fs, and maximal available spectral bandwidth. Contrarily, the parametric conversion efficiency is higher for pulses with a duration in the 100-fs range due to temporal walk-off and coating limitations. Here we suggest an approach to adjust the spectral characteristics of high-power chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) to the requirements of different nonlinear frequency converters while preserving the low-phase-noise (PN) properties of the system. To achieve spectral tunability, we installed a mechanical spectral shaper in a free-space section of the stretcher of an in-house-developed ytterbium-fiber-based CPA system. The CPA system delivers 100 W of average power at a repetition rate of 132.4 MHz. While gaining control over the spectral properties, we preserve the relative-intensity-noise and PN properties of the system. The high-power CPA can easily be adjusted to deliver either a spectrum ideal for mid-IR light generation (full width at half maximum of ∼ 11 nm , compressed pulse duration of 230 fs) or a spectrum ideal for highly nonlinear processes such as high-harmonic generation ( - 10 dB level of &gt; 50 nm , transform-limited pulse duration of ∼ 65 fs ).

Flattening laser frequency comb spectra with a high dynamic range, broadband spectral shaper on-a-chip.

Spectral shaping is critical to many fields of science. In astronomy for example, the detection of exoplanets via the Doppler effect hinges on the ability to calibrate a high resolution spectrograph. Laser frequency combs can be used for this, but the wildly varying intensity across the spectrum can make it impossible to optimally utilize the entire comb, leading to a reduced overall precision of calibration. To circumvent this, astronomical applications of laser frequency combs rely on a bulk optic setup which can flatten the output spectrum before sending it to the spectrograph. Such flatteners require complex and expensive optical elements like spatial light modulators and have non-negligible bench top footprints. Here we present an alternative in the form of an all-photonic spectral shaper that can be used to flatten the spectrum of a laser frequency comb. The device consists of a circuit etched into a silicon nitride wafer that supports an arrayed-waveguide grating to disperse the light over hundreds of nanometers in wavelength, followed by Mach-Zehnder interferometers to control the amplitude of each channel, thermo-optic phase modulators to phase the channels and a second arrayed-waveguide grating to recombine the spectrum. The demonstrator device operates from 1400 to 1800 nm (covering the astronomical H band), with twenty 20 nm wide channels. The device allows for nearly 40 dBs of dynamic modulation of the spectrum via the Mach-Zehnders , which is greater than that offered by most spatial light modulators. With a smooth spectrum light source (superluminescent diode), we reduced the static spectral variation to ∼3 dB, limited by the properties of the components used in the circuit. On a laser frequency comb which had strong spectral modulations, and some at high spatial frequencies, we nevertheless managed to reduce the modulation to ∼5 dBs, sufficient for astronomical applications. The size of the device is of the order of a US quarter, significantly cheaper than their bulk optic counter parts and will be beneficial to any area of science that requires spectral shaping over a broad range, with high dynamic range, including exoplanet detection.

Photonic generation of broadband linearly chirped microwave waveform based on a low-loss silicon on-chip spectral shaper.

A silicon on-chip spectral shaper based on a Sagnac loop incorporating a chirped multi-mode waveguide Bragg grating (WBG) for linearly chirped microwave waveform generation is fabricated and demonstrated. The transmission spectrum of the spectral shaper displays low insertion loss characteristic due to the application of edge coupling taper and multi-mode waveguide based grating. An up-chirped microwave waveform with bandwidth as large as 44 GHz is generated by mapping the spectrum profile of the spectral shaper to the temporal domain through a dispersion fiber. The instantaneous frequency of the generated signal shows good linearity benefiting from the weak modulation strength in the multi-mode WBG. The low insertion loss performance as well as the low dispersion value required in our design presents feasibility in further integration with on-chip dispersion.

Photonic generation of a microwave waveform with an ultra-long temporal duration using a frequency-shifting dispersive loop.

A photonic approach to generate a linearly chirped microwave waveform (LCMW) with an ultra-long temporal duration is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The microwave waveform generation is achieved based on spectral-shaping and wavelength-to-time (SS-WTT) mapping by using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) and a frequency-shifting dispersive loop (FSDL), respectively. To make the generated microwave waveform have an ultra-long temporal duration, the FSDL is operating to allow a spectrally shaped optical pulse to recirculate in a dispersive loop multiple times with a low propagating loss, to generate a microwave waveform with a temporal duration that is more than one order of magnitude longer than that of a microwave waveform generated using a dispersive element without recirculation. To generate a LCMW, the spectral shaper is configured to have a free spectral range (FSR) that is linearly increasing or decreasing with optical wavelength. The proposed approach is experimentally demonstrated. Two LCMWs, by allowing an optical pulse recirculating in the FSDL for three and seven round trips, tripled and septupled temporal durations of 64 and 182 ns are generated. The generation of two LCMWs with ultra-long temporal durations of 370 ns and 450 ns are also demonstrated.

Multigigawatt 50 fs Yb:CALGO regenerative amplifier system with 11 W average power and mid-infrared generation

Lasers with high average and high peak power as well as ultrashort pulse width have been all along demanded by nonlinear optics studies, strong-field experiments, electron dynamics investigations, and ultrafast spectroscopy. While the routinely used titanium-doped sapphire (Ti:sapphire) laser faces a bottleneck in the average power upscaling, ytterbium (Yb)-doped lasers have remarkable advantages in achieving high average power. However, there is still a substantial gap of pulse width and peak power between the Ti:sapphire and Yb-doped lasers. Here we demonstrate a high-power Yb : CaAlGdO 4 (Yb:CALGO) regenerative amplifier system, delivering 1040 nm pulses with 11 W average power, 50 fs pulse width, and 3.7 GW peak power at a repetition rate of 43 kHz, which to some extent bridges the gap between the Ti:sapphire and Yb lasers. An ultrabroadband Yb-doped fiber oscillator, specially designed spectral shapers, and Yb:CALGO gain medium with broad emission bandwidth, together with a double-end pumping scheme enable an amplified bandwidth of 19 nm and 95 fs output pulse width. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of sub-100 fs regenerative amplifier based on Yb-doped bulk medium without nonlinear spectral broadening. The amplified pulse is further compressed to 50 fs via cascaded-quadratic compression with a simple setup, producing 3.7 GW peak power, which boosts the record of peak power from Yb:CALGO regenerative amplifiers by 1 order. As a proof of concept, pumped by the high-power, 50 fs pulses, 7.5–11.5 µm mid-infrared (MIR) generation via intrapulse difference-frequency generation is performed, without the necessity of nonlinear fiber compressors. It leads to a simple and robust apparatus, and it would find good usefulness in MIR spectroscopic applications.

Compressive sensing based on optical mixing using a spectral shaper with bipolar coding.

Photonic compressive sensing (CS) has attracted great research interest for its potentials in the acquisition of wideband sparse signals with relatively low sampling rate. The photonic CS scheme based on optical mixing using a spectral shaper can realize the mixing of a sparse signal with a high-speed pseudo-random bit sequence (PRBS), but avoids the use of high-speed electronics. In this approach, by utilizing the frequency-to-time mapping (FTTM) of chirped pulses, the spectral information on the spatial light modulator (SLM) within a spectral shaper can be projected into the time-domain waveform. However, the generated PRBS in the time domain is a unipolar sequence that alternates between 0 and 1, which leads to a nonzero-mean measurement matrix. This would result in a poorer performance of signal reconstruction compared to that with a zero-mean measurement matrix. Moreover, the length of PRBS that can be recorded in the SLM is also limited by the far-field condition. In this paper, we propose an optical mixer for photonic CS, which utilizes an SLM-based spectral shaper with complementary outputs as well as a balanced photodetector in order to generate bipolar PRBS. The performance of signal reconstruction can be significantly improved owing to the zero-mean measurement matrix induced by bipolar PRBS. In addition, the constraint on the length of PRBS can be greatly alleviated, since the obtained PRBS can still be kept zero-mean even if the PRBS is longer than that the far-field condition demands. Experimental and simulation results are presented to demonstrate the feasibility and advantage of the given approach.

Versatile silicon microwave photonic spectral shaper

Optical modulation plays arguably the utmost important role in microwave photonic (MWP) systems. Precise synthesis of modulated optical spectra dictates virtually all aspects of MWP system quality including loss, noise figure, linearity, and types of functionalities that can be executed. However, for such a critical function, the versatility to generate and transform analog optical modulation is severely lacking, blocking the pathways to truly unique MWP functions including ultra-linear links and low-loss high rejection filters. Here, we demonstrate a versatile radiofrequency (RF) photonic spectral shaper integrated in a silicon photonic circuit. The spectral shaper controls the two modulation bands generated from an electro-optic modulation process in their relative amplitude and phase, offering an enhanced versatility for microwave-photonic modulation applications. Using the spectral shaper, we show electrically tailorable modulation transformations. Furthermore, we show a series of unprecedented RF filtering experiments through monolithic integration of the spectral shaper with a network of reconfigurable ring resonators.

Infinite hierarchy of solitons: Interaction of Kerr nonlinearity with even orders of dispersion

The authors demonstrate the existence of optical solitons arising from the balance between self-phase modulation and negative, pure, even high-order dispersion using a fiber laser incorporating a spectral pulse shaper.

Adaptive photonic RF spectral shaper.

The radio frequency spectral shaper is an essential component in emerging multi-service mobile communications, multiband satellite and radar systems, and future 5G/6G radio frequency systems for equalizing spectral unevenness, removing out-of-band noise and interference, and manipulating multi-band signal simultaneously. While it is easy to achieve simple spectral functions using either conventional microwave photonic filters or the optical spectrum to microwave spectra mapping techniques, it is challenging to enable complex spectral shaping functions over tens of GHz bandwidth as well as to achieve point-by-point shaping capability to fulfill the needs in dynamic wireless communications. In this paper, we proposed and demonstrated a novel spectral shaping system, which utilizes a two-section algorithm to automatically decompose the target RF response into a series of Gaussian functions and to reconstruct the desired RF response by microwave photonic techniques. The devised spectral shaping system is capable of manipulating the spectral function in various bands (S, C, and X) simultaneously with step resolution of as fine as tens of MHz. The resolution limitation in optical spectral processing is mitigated using the discrete convolution technique. Over 10 dynamic and independently adjustable spectral control points are experimentally achieved based on the proposed spectral shaper.

High-repetition rate, mid-infrared, picosecond pulse generation with µJ-energies based on OPG/OPA schemes in 2-µm-pumped ZnGeP2.

We report on two different concepts to generate µJ-level mid-infrared laser pulses with sub-10 ps pulse duration via nonlinear parametric generation at high pulse repetition rates. Both schemes rely on the recent development of compact and efficient CPA-free, Ho:YLF-based 2-µm laser sources pumping the highly nonlinear crystal ZnGeP2 used for parametric amplification. The first concept comprises a simplified OPG/OPA scheme efficiently producing signal and idler radiation at fixed wavelengths of 3.0 and 6.5 µm, respectively. In the second concept, we demonstrate a wide spectral tunability of the picosecond, µJ pulses over the entire tuning range between 2.5 and 12 µm maintaining a constant bandwidth of sub-20 cm-1 by integrating a two-color pumping scheme and a spectral shaper into the setup. The presented compact and efficient mid-IR picosecond radiation sources offer a way towards low-cost mid-IR material processing and spectroscopic applications.

The pure-quartic soliton laser

Ultrashort pulse generation hinges on the careful management of dispersion. Traditionally, this has exclusively involved second-order dispersion, with higher-order dispersion treated as a nuisance to be minimized. Here, we show that this higher-order dispersion can be strategically leveraged to access an uncharted regime of ultrafast laser operation. In particular, our mode-locked laser—with an intracavity spectral pulse shaper—emits pure-quartic soliton pulses that arise from the interaction of fourth-order dispersion and the Kerr nonlinearity. Phase-resolved measurements demonstrate that their pulse energy scales with the third power of the inverse pulse duration. This implies a strong increase in the energy of short pure-quartic solitons compared with conventional solitons, for which the energy scales as the inverse of the pulse duration. These results not only demonstrate a novel approach to ultrafast lasers, but more fundamentally, they clarify the use of higher-order dispersion for optical pulse control, enabling innovations in nonlinear optics and its applications. By suppressing the second- and third-order intracavity dispersion using an intracavity spectral pulse shaper, a mode-locked laser that emits pure-quartic soliton pulses that arise from the interaction of the fourth-order dispersion and the Kerr nonlinearity is demonstrated.

Power-efficient FCC-compliant UWB generator using polarization-maintaining FBG-based spectral shaper and incoherent wavelength-to-time mapping

Abstract A novel scheme to generate power-efficient FCC-compliant UWB has been proposed using polarization-maintaining FBG-based spectral shaper and incoherent wavelength-to-time mapping. The target UWB pulse is designed based on the linear combination of four Gaussian pulses with the same pulsewidth, which can be considered as a Gaussian pulse that is bandpass-filtered by a four-tap nonuniformly-spaced filter. FCC-compliant UWB with high spectral power efficiency (46.2–57.2%) can be realized using optimized parameters. Temporal gate and spectral shaper are two key components of an incoherent spectral shaping and wavelength-to-time mapping (SS-WTTM) system. Owing to strong nonlinear absorption characteristic of electro-absorption modulator (EAM), lowpass-filtered electrical pulse is compressed for the implementation of narrow optical gate. 45-ps optical gate is achieved experimentally using 10-Gb/s EAM driven by 10-Gb/s bit pattern generator. This cost-effective gate can be extended to general incoherent SS-WTTM method to substitute commonly-used high-speed gate. Furthermore, a simple spectral shaper is designed based on a uniform polarization-maintaining FBG. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time to achieve power-efficient FCC-compliant UWB using all-fiber spectral shaper, which has the advantages of small size, low insertion loss, and feasibility of integration. Proposed UWB generator is demonstrated by both simulation and experiment. FCC-compliant UWB with 10-dB bandwidth of 6.25-GHz, and spectral power efficiency of 55.9% is realized successfully.