Tunable Ring Research Articles

Tunable Er-doped fiber ring laser with single longitudinal mode operation based on Rayleigh backscattering in single mode fiber

A tunable and single longitudinal mode Er-doped fiber ring laser (SLM-EDFRL) is proposed and demonstrated based on Rayleigh backscattering (RBS) in single mode fiber-28e (SMF-28e). Theory and experimental study on formation of SLM from normal multi-mode ring laser is demonstrated. The RBS feedback in 660 m SMF-28e is the key to ensure SLM laser oscillation. This tunable SLM laser can be tuned over 1549.7-1550.18 nm with a linewidth of 2.5-3.0 kHz and a side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) of ~72 dB for electrical signal power. The tuning range is determined by the bandpass filter and gain medium used in the experiment. The laser is able to operate at S+C+L band.

Synchronous tunable wavelength spacing dual-wavelength SOA fiber ring laser using Fiber Bragg grating pair in a hybrid tuning package

A Dual-Wavelength Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (DW-SOA) based fiber ring laser with synchronous wavelength tunability is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The SOA gain medium strongly suppresses mode competition, thus allowing stable dual-wavelength laser oscillation. The wavelength spacing of the two lasers can be tuned synchronously using a modified hybrid-tuning package incorporating a pair of Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs). The DW-SOA demonstrates a laser output with a wavelength spacing of between 0.10 and 8.30 nm (wavelength shift inequality of 0.08 to 0.75 nm). The relationship between the applied strain and wavelength shift of the two tuning modes is also analyzed.

Ultra-Long Distance Fiber Bragg Grating Sensor System

A novel tunable fiber ring laser configuration with a combination of Raman amplification and erbium-doped fiber amplification (EDFA) is proposed for realizing high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), ultra-long distance (300 km) fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor systems. The hybrid Raman–EDF amplification configuration can enhance the optical SNR of FBG sensor signals significantly, so the optical power reflected by the fiber Bragg grating can be compensated. A good optical SNR of 15 dB is achieved for a 275 km transmission distance, which is the best performance to our knowledge, and about 4 dB at 300 km. In the static strain experiments with fiber lengths of 100,200,250,300 km, the linearity is greater than 0.999. This system can be widely used in the ultra-long-distance sensing applications such as railways, oil(gas) pipelines and coastline.

Effect of beam waists on performance of the tunable fiber laser based on in-line two-taper Mach–Zehnder interferometer filter

A tunable fiber ring laser based on an in-line two-taper Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) filter was realized, and the effect of beam waists of the tapers on performance of the laser was investigated with different beam waists of 70 μm, 49 μm, and 33 μm. Experimental results show that the tunable laser with MZI length of 1 m and beam waist of 49 μm can cover 16.1 nm with tuning steps of 0.07-0.5 nm, a bandwidth of 10 pm, and a side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) of 40-50 dB. Tuning range is not only determined by the number of the cladding modes but is also affected by the filter loss. Tuning step is determined by the differences of the effective refractive indexes between the cladding modes and the core mode. SMSR is determined by the balance between the extinction ratio of the filter and the cavity loss of the laser due to MZI filter.

Silicon-on-Insulator Nanowire Resonators for Compact and Ultra-High Speed All-Optical Wavelength Converters

We present the development of application-specific silicon-on-insulator SOI nanowire ring and racetrack resonators designed to assist semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)-based all-optical wavelength conversion. We demonstrate the fabrication of fix resonance racetrack resonators exhibiting coupling gaps as low as 160 nm and tunable ring resonators with coupling gaps <; 90 nm. The resonators are cascaded after commercial 40 Gb/s SOAs to realize chirp filtering of the optical data signals through high-resolution spectral sampling. We experimentally demonstrate inverted and non-inverted SOI resonator-assisted all-optical wavelength conversion at 40 Gb/s and 160 Gb/s with power penalties <; 3 dB.

Stable wavelength tunable fiber ring laser for true-time delay system

In this paper, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel wavelength tunable fiber ring laser source for a photonic beamforming system to control phased-array antenna. In this fabrication, a Sagnac loop composed of a polarization-maintaining (PM) coupler and a piece of high-birefringence (Hi-Bi) PM fiber is acted as a comb filter to make the frequency spacing equal. The wavelength of the output signal is controlled by the tunable filter outside the Sagnac loop. The intensities of the output signals with different wavelengths increased or decreased at the same frequency spacing are equal. A five-channel true-time delay system consisting of this tunable fiber source and five grating delay lines for discrete beamsteering has been demonstrated. In the experiment, the output signals of the tunable fiber ring with the equal frequency spacing have the same intensity of about 5.9 dBm and the same high signal to noise ratio (SNR) of 40 dB. If the tunable filter in this laser is replaced by a micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) tunable filter, the speed of switching wavelength will increase rapidly.

Tunable multiwavelength SOA-fiber ring laser based on Sagnac loop mirror incorporating few-mode high birefringence fiber

A tunable multiwavelength fiber ring laser based on a semiconductor optical amplifier and Sagnac loop mirror incorporating a piece of few-mode high birefringence fiber (FM-HBF) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. It is accomplished by simply adjusting a polarization controller in the Sagnac loop mirror because birefringence of the FM-HBF is polarization dependent. Tunable multiwavelength operation up to 11 oscillating lines at about 2.1 nm interval is stably achieved with an optical side-mode suppression ratio over 35 dB.

Tunable and switchable multi-wavelength Erbium-doped photonic crystal fiber ring laser incorporating a length of highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber

A tunable and switchable multi-wavelength Erbium-doped photonic crystal fiber ring laser incorporating a length of single-mode highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. Stable dual-wavelength and triple-wavelength operations at room temperature are achieved by employing the highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber to induce four-wave mixing effect and a polarization controller to vary the polarization states of propagation lights in the laser cavity. The laser cavity is free from any wavelength selection components. The laser obtains maximal 30 dB signal-to-noise ratio and the peak power fluctuations of lasing lines are less than 1.39 dB.

Tunable dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber ring laser covering both C-band and L-band for high-speed communications

A simple, continuously tunable dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber ring laser (TDEDFL) structure for applications in high-speed communication systems is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The dual-wavelength tuning range is 58 nm covering both the C-band and L-band from 1547 to 1605 nm. We can not only obtain a 45% improvement over previously reported tuning ranges, but also tune the wavelength of each lasing output independently. The power equalization of the dual-wavelength outputs is less than 1.5 dB. We obtain extremely stable power variation and wavelength fluctuation at room temperature. Using this fiber laser, a 10-Gb/s data transmission over a 25-km single-mode fiber (SMF) can be made available with a power penalty of 0.5 dB is demonstrated with this laser.

Split Ring Resonators (SRRs) Based on Micro-Electro-Mechanical Deflectable Cantilever-Type Rings: Application to Tunable Stopband Filters

A new principle for the implementation of tunable split ring resonators (SRRs) is presented. The rings forming the SRRs are partly fixed to the substrate (anchor) and partly suspended (up-curved cantilever). Through electrostatic actuation, the suspended parts are deflected down, the distributed capacitance between the pair of coupled rings is modified, and hence the resonance frequency of the SRR can be electrically tuned. To obtain electrically movable rings, a cantilever-type micro-electro-mechanical-system (MEMS) design and fabrication process is applied. The resonance frequencies at the different switching states are measured by coupling the tunable SRR to a host microstrip line, and reveal that significant tuning ranges can be achieved. This novel tuning concept is applied to the implementation of tunable stopband filters at Ku band as proof-of-concept demonstrators.

Integrated InP-InGaAsP tunable coupled ring optical bandpass filters with zero insertion loss

Second and third-order monolithically integrated coupled ring bandpass filters are demonstrated in the InP-InGaAsP material system with active semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) and current injection phase modulators (PMs). Such integration achieves a high level of tunability and precise generation of optical filters in the RF domain at telecom wavelengths while simultaneously compensating for device insertion loss. Passband bandwidth tunability of 3.9 GHz to 7.1 GHz and stopband extinction up to 40 dB are shown for third-order filters. Center frequency tunability over a full free spectral range (FSR) is demonstrated, allowing for the placement of a filter anywhere in the telecom C-band. A Z-transform representation of coupled resonator filters is derived and compared with experimental results. A theoretical description of filter tunability is presented.

Employing dual-saturable-absorber-based filter for stable and tunable erbium-doped fiber ring laser in single-frequency

In this demonstration, a stable and wavelength-tunable erbium-doped fiber (EDF) ring laser using dual-saturable-absorber-based (DSAB) filter inside loop cavity is proposed and experimentally investigated. The proposed DSAB filter not only can filter the side-mode in single-frequency output, but also can obtain the flattened output power spectrum within 1 dB variation in the effectively range of 1529 to 1563 nm. In addition, the output stabilities of wavelength and power are also measured experimentally and discussed.

Compact and broadband tunable hybrid ring coupler using synthetic left- and right-handed transmission lines

In this letter, we present a frequency tunable hybrid ring coupler based on the concepts of a synthetic left- and right-handed transmission line.The proposed ring coupler makes use of lumped inductor-capacitor (LC) elements to greatly reduce the circuit size; meanwhile, the frequency responses of the coupler can be tuned by direct current (DC) bias voltages. The fabricated hybrid ring coupler shows a wideband performance with an insertion loss of less than 2.5 dB from 1.7 to 3.3 GHz. For this frequency band, the isolation is maintained at more than 24 dB. When the circuit is excited to get a pair of differential signal, less than ±5° phase error is observed for the whole frequency range. This hybrid has a 78% size reduction compared to the conventional ones and achieved a 64% of fractional bandwidth at 2.5 GHz. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 53:1379–1382, 2011; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.25959

Hybrid Si-LiNbO_3 microring electro-optically tunable resonators for active photonic devices

Hybrid Si-LiNbO₃ electro-optic tunable ring resonators have been proposed and demonstrated as a path to achieving ultracompact and high-speed electro-optic devices. Free standing single crystal LiNbO₃ microplatelets (~mm long and ~1 μm thick) were obtained from a z-cut LiNbO₃ substrate by ion implantation and thermal treatment. The platelets were transferred and thermally bonded on top of Si resonators that were fabricated in a Si-on-insulator platform by a 0.18 μm standard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor process. For the hybrid microring resonator, a free spectral range of 16.5 nm, a finesse F of ~1.67 × 10², a Q-factor of ~1.68 × 10⁴, and an effective r coefficient of ~1.7 pm/V were achieved for the TE mode. These values are in good agreement with the calculated results.

Tunable Multiwavelength Fiber Ring Lasers Based on an Opto-VLSI Processor

We propose and experimentally demonstrate the principle of a tunable multiwavelength fiber ring laser based on the use of an opto-very-large-scale-integration (Opto-VLSI) processor in conjunction with an erbium-doped fiber amplifier and a semiconductor optical amplifier. Multiple wavelength channels within the gain range of the optical amplifiers can independently be generated, tuned and/or switched on/off, through applying appropriate phase holograms onto the Opto-VLSI processor. A tunable five-wavelength fiber ring laser of output power of around +6 dBm per channel and a sidemode suppression ratio (SMSR) greater than 30 dB is demonstrated. The tunable multiwavelength fiber lasers have excellent stability at room temperature.

Tunable Tm-doped fiber ring laser operating at 19 μm band using force-induced fiber grating as wavelength tuner

We report wavelength-tunable operation of a Tm-doped silica fiber laser by using a force-induced long-period fiber grating (LPFG) formed in a fiber ring resonator. The laser output wavelength is tuned by moving the transmission passband that is generated between adjacent resonance wavelengths due to the force-induced LPFG. By changing the grating period around 900 μm, we control the laser output wavelength between 1845 and 1930 nm.

New zinc diphosphonates with bright tunable luminescence and 12-member ring channels

A zinc diphosphonate, (H2G)0.5[Zn3(L)(HL)]·3H2O (G = 4-picolylamine, H4L = 1-hydroxyl-2-(3-pyridyl)ethylidene-1,1-diphosphonic acid) displays a 3D pillared open-framework with ellipsoid-like 12MR channels, bright tunable luminescence and thermally stable up to 250 °C under an air atmosphere.

A novel photoacoustic spectroscopy system using diphragm based fiber Fabry-Perot sensor

A wavelength modulated photoacoustic spectroscopy system utilizing an optical fiber microphone and a tunable Erbium-doped fiber Ring laser combined with an erbium doped fiber amplifier is first developed. The diaphragm based Fabry-Perot sensor using interferometric/intensity demodulated method is used as high sensitive optical fiber microphone. This system is applied to the detection of acetylene using a resonant photoacoustic cell on its second longitudinal mode. The experimental results demonstrate that the low concentration acetylene flowing measurement can be detected by optical microphone, and the amplitude of second harmonic is proportion to the concentration of acetylene. The linearity is 0.9999. At room temperature and atmospheric pressure, the minimum detectable limit of acetylene is about 1.5 parts-per-billion (ppb) volume (SNR=1), which can be compared with condense microphone.

Polarization controlled tunable multiwavelength SOA-fiber laser based on few-mode polarization maintaining fiber loop mirror

A tunable multiwavelength fiber ring laser based on a semiconductor optical amplifier and few-mode polarization maintaining fiber (FM-PMF) loop mirror is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. It is accomplished by simply adjusting a polarization controller (PC) next to the FM-PMF in the loop arm for the polarization-dependent mode excitation in the FM-PMF and the resulting effective refractive index change. In addition, the undesirable dependence of the transmission loss of the FM-PMF loop mirror on the rotation angle of the PC in the loop arm can be reduced by using a fiber coupler with unequal coupling ratio instead of equal coupling ratio. Stable and tunable multiwavelength operation with up to 11 lasing lines at about 1.5 nm interval is achieved with the power deviation less than 2 dB and optical signal to noise extinction ratio over 35 dB.

Widely ultra-narrow linewidth 104 nm tunable all-fiber compact erbium-doped ring laser

A widely tunable narrow linewidth compact erbium-doped all-fiber ring laser with 104 nm tuning range was reported. An all-fiber Fabry-Perot filter (FFP-TF) was used to realize the laser tuning output, and the wavelength at constant voltage had high time stability. With the 8 m length erbium-doped fiber as gain medium, we realized widely tunable laser from 1513 to 1617 nm with the linewidth less than 40 pm at any wavelength. Pumped by the 976 nm laser diode, the fiber laser worked with slope efficiency of above 10% and threshold of less than 21 mW.