We present the fs laser inscription of ring-shaped random structures using Spatial Light Modulator (SLM) in multimode GRIN fiber. The use of SLM allows one to modulate the phase of the fs radiation incident on it and to write various structures with complex geometries inside the static fiber core. We optimized the fs laser inscription parameters: pulse energy, SLM frame rate, overall length and distances along the fiber of the structures to enhance Rayleigh backscattering level at minimal insertion losses. In particular, scattering structures with random distances along the fiber were written using the Line-by-Line method in single mode fiber at the optimal inscription parameters (pulse energy of 3 μJ, SLM frame rate of 5 Hz, the overall of 2 mm and random distances along the fiber in the range of 5 μm). Further, we created the ring-shaped random structures in 100/140 μm GRIN multimode fiber with enhanced Rayleigh backscattering level by +66 dB/mm relative to the intrinsic fiber level. Owing to the variation of random distances along the fiber and ring’s diameters of structures in range of 0.5 μm and 20 μm, respectively, allows one to obtain a broadband reflection spectrum within 88 nm with a reflection coefficient of 0.01%. The low threshold generation with ring-shaped output beam of the Raman fiber laser with random distributed feedback based on the SLM-inscribed random structures in the multimode fiber is demonstrated for the first time.
Spatial beam self-cleaning in graded-index multimode fibers involves a nonlinear transfer of power among the fiber modes, which leads to robust bell-shaped output beams. The resulting output mode power distribution can be described by statistical mechanics arguments. Although the spatial coherence of the output beam was experimentally demonstrated, there is no direct study of modal phase evolution. Based on a holographic mode decomposition method, we reveal that nonlinear spatial phase-locking occurs between the fundamental and its neighboring low-order modes, in good quantitative agreement with theoretical predictions.
Linear and non-linear propagation of ultrashort pulses in a seven-core fiber was investigated experimentally and numerically in a normal dispersion regime. We observed non-uniform coupling conditions between different cores that may be the result of a random refractive index deviation. It was characterized by measurements of the power distribution and FROG traces at the output of a multicore fiber. The cores were excited by a spatial light modulator using the weighted Gerchberg-Saxton algorithm to generate phase masks. It allows us to switch-on any combination without manual alignment of the experimental setup. Finally, as the input power increased, a nonlinear coupling was observed between the selected cores, similar to a saturable absorber. So we believe that such a device could be useful for a development of high-power ultrashort fiber lasers and pulse shaping applications.
Numerical simulation of the fiber optic parametric oscillator aiming the goal to produce picosecond narrowband pulses for CARS has been performed in an extremely wide range of parameters, such as a pump pulse duration, parametric frequency shift, spectral bandwidth of the pump and the parametric pulses. It required extremely large calculation window both in time (3.5 ns) and spectral (from 433 nm to 3100 nm) domains. We managed to speed up simulation in fifty times by graphic processor unit, which allowed to define the areas of stability for different lengths of standard passive and photonic-crystal fibers used in the external linear cavity of oscillator. The cavity length reached a value of 100 meters that was resulted in parametric pulses with the energy up to 40 nJ and peak power up to 1 kW at a wavelength about 800 nm.
All-fiber Raman lasers have demonstrated their potential for the efficient conversion of highly multimode pump beams into a high-quality Stokes beams. However, the modal content of these beams has not been investigated yet. Here we apply, for the first time, a mode decomposition technique for revealing intermodal interactions in different operational regimes of CW multimode Raman lasers. Our approach allows for analyzing the output laser radiation in terms of the amplitude and phase distributions of a huge number of excited modes for both the pump and the Stokes beams, which enables a new insight into nonlinear mode coupling processes. The measured contribution of the first three modes of the residual pump beam after overcoming the SRS threshold decreased on average by 25%, whereas the signal beam mainly consists of fundamental mode (40%) and the modes of the first group (20%).
Graded-index multimode optical fibers have recently attracted a renewed attention, thanks to the discovery of new nonlinear effects, such as Kerr beam self-cleaning. In essence, Kerr self-cleaning involves a flow of the propagating beam energy into the fundamental mode of the fiber, accompanied by a redistribution of the remaining energy among high-order modes. Increasing the fundamental mode energy leads to a significant improvement of the output beam quality. A standard method to determine beam quality is to measure the M2 parameter. However, since self-cleaning involves the nonlinear redistribution of energy among a large number of fiber modes, measuring a single beam quality parameter is not sufficient to characterize the effect. A properly informative approach requires performing the mode decomposition of the output beam. Mode decomposition permits to evaluate the energy distribution among all of the excited fiber modes, which enables investigations of nonlinear mode coupling processes at a qualitatively new level. In this work, we demonstrate an efficiency mode decomposition method based on holography, which is suitable for analyzing the self-cleaning effect. In a theoretical study, we describe the solution of the mode decomposition problem for the modes of the gradedindex multimode fiber. In an experimental investigation, we demonstrate the decomposition of both low-power (speckled) and self-cleaned beams, involving more than 80 modes.
Beam self-imaging of ultrashort pulses in nonlinear graded-index (GRIN) multimode optical fibers is of interest for many applications, including spatiotemporal mode-locking in fiber lasers. We obtained a new analytical description for the nonlinear evolution of a laser beam of arbitrary transverse shape propagating in a GRIN fiber. The longitudinal beam evolution could be directly visualized by means of femtosecond laser pulses, propagating in the anomalous or in the normal dispersion regime, leading to light scattering out of the fiber core via the emission of blue photo-luminescence. As the critical power for self-focusing is approached and even surpassed, a host of previously undisclosed nonlinear effects is revealed, including strong multiphoton absorption by oxygen-deficiency center defects and Germanium inclusions, splitting and shifting of the self-imaging period, filamentation, and conical emission of the guided light bullets. We discovered that nonlinear loss has a profound influence on the process of high-order spatiotemporal soliton fission. The beam energy carried by the fiber is clamped to a fixed value, and nonlinear bullet attractors with suppressed Raman frequency shift and fixed temporal duration are generated, leading to highly efficient frequency conversion of the input near-infrared femtosecond pulses into mid-infrared multimode solitons.
Today, perspectives of using the picosecond and femtosecond pulses for biological tissue analysis are limited with several problems. One of them is an absence of direct sources of radiation in water transparency windows, e.g. 1.3 and 1.7 microns. There are several techniques that can produce that kind of radiation. In order to generate it we used synchronous pump and stimulated Raman scattering in a phosphosilicate fiber inside an external cavity. Our work presents the experimental and numerical modeling results for 1.3 micron Raman dissipative soliton generation in an all-fiber system. Additionally, attempts of pulse synchronous amplification are reported.
CARS is the one of most exciting and actively developed techniques for real-time monitoring of processes occurring in biological tissues. We present a fiber optical parametric oscillator pumped by specially designed MOPA fiber laser to get time-synchronized optical signals with a frequencies difference of 2800-3000 reverse centimeters. We utilize the fourwave mixing effect in a photonic-crystal fiber to build narrowband tunable fiber optical parametric oscillator. A complex optimization of each part of the source has been performed.
We experimentally demonstrate a cascaded generation of a conventional dissipative soliton (DS) at 1020 nm and Raman dissipative solitons (RDS) of the first (1065 nm) and second (1115 nm) orders inside a common fiber laser cavity. The generated high-energy pulses are shown to be linearly-chirped and compressible to 200-300 fs durations for all wavelengths. Moreover, the pulses are mutually coherent that has been confirmed by efficient coherent combining exhibiting ~75 fs and <40 fs interference fringes within the combined pulse envelope of a DS with the first-order RDS and the second-order RDS respectively. The numerical simulation was performed with sinusoidal (soft) and step-like (hard) spectral filters and took into account the discreetness of the laser elements. Shown that even higher degree of coherence and shorter pulses could be achieved with hard spectral filtering. This approach opens the door towards cascaded generation of multiple coherent dissipative solitons in a broad spectral range (so-called dissipative soliton comb). The demonstrated source of coherent dissipative solitons can improve numerous areas such as frequency comb generation, pulse synthesis, biomedical imaging and the generation of coherent mid-infrared supercontinuum.
A structural health monitoring system based on optical sensors has been developed and installed on the indoor soccer arena "Zarya" in Novosibirsk. The system integrates 119 fiber optic sensors: 85 strain, 32 temperature and 2 displacement sensors. In addition, total station is used for measuring displacement in 45 control points. All of the constituents of the supporting structure are subjects for monitoring: long-span frames with under floor ties, connections, purlins and foundation.
We report on the experimental realization of a highly-chirped dissipative soliton (DS) oscillator with all-fiber cavity consisting of a short single-mode fiber part (for mode locking via nonlinear polarization evolution) and a long PM fiber part (for generation of highly-chirped DS) that enabled to increase cavity length to L ~ 90 m. Stable DS pulses dechirped to ~ 200 fs are generated with maximum energy of ~ 20 nJ. The energy limit is shown to be defined by the onset of Raman conversion of the DS spectrum. The Stokes pulse reaching comparable energy inside the cavity and does not break the soliton stability. Higher DS energy is possible by means of a core enlargement, corresponding experiments are also performed.
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