The geometry mismatch between active and passive fibers and particularly the presence of a pedestal around the core of active fibers creates a light coupling from this pedestal to the cladding of the passive fiber when spliced together. This signal light propagating in the cladding can results in a beam degradation that reduces the laser performances. We proposed a new solution consisting in using a perfectly matched couple of fibers by adding a pedestal around the core of the passive fiber. This pedestal maintains the coupling light in a quasi-single-mode pedestal area that will not lead to any power losses and not degrade the output beam.
Narrow linewidth laser diodes (LDs) emitting in the near-UV (NUV) are gaining attention for applications ranging from spectroscopy to atom cooling and interferometry or other applications requiring high spectral purity. InGaN edge-emitting LDs can exhibit a power of hundreds of mW in an unstable multimode regime detrimental to aforementioned uses. In this paper we report on a compact and robust design based on a low-cost blue LD, a beam shaping optical system and a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) acting as a wavelength selective reflector. One longitudinal mode of the non-antireflection coated laser diode is selected by a close to 30 pm bandwidth FBG allowing a few mW output power around 400 nm and a sidemode- suppression-ratio approaching 50 dB exceeding our last published results. Our previous studies showed that a single-frequency regime with a sub-MHz integrated linewidth and an estimated intrinsic linewidth of 16 kHz was possible by a carefully engineered external cavity. We will study the influence of the cavity length with different fiber types (SM or PM). Assessment will focus on the linewidth and a detailed intensity and frequency noise analysis of the emission. We will also investigate for the first-time the stability of several types of UV-FBG submitted to tens of mW of 400 nm light guided into the fiber core. This work demonstrates state-of-the-art performances by connecting low-cost components and opens the way to the fabrication of highly coherent laser sources that could meet the markets for the NUV applications.
Based on the experience acquired early from pioneering work at Stanford University and Thomson-CSF starting in the mid 70s, fiber optic gyro (FOG) R&D began at Photonetics in the late 80s to yield OCTANS, a FOG-based inertial strapdown system providing attitude and gyro compassing, at the end of the 90s. This FOG activity was spun out from Photonetics in October 2000 to create iXsea with only 16 people. The product line was rapidly expanded with PHINS, an inertial-grade INS (Inertial Navigation System) and later with MARINS, a strategic-grade INS, as well as with ASTRIX systems developed for satellites in cooperation with EADS-Astrium (today Airbus Defence & Space). In 2010, iXsea merged with several subsidiaries of its parent company, iXcore, to create iXblue. Among these subsidiaries were iXfiber, a maker of specialty fibers, and Photline, producing lithium-niobate integrated optics, hence allowing iXblue to fully master the key FOG components supply chain. Ten years later, the ‘adventure' is continuing and the former start-up is now quite a significant player in the inertial world, especially for high-grade applications. The cumulated number of high-performance 3-axis systems in service has grown to over 8,000, i.e. more than 25,000 FOG axes, with a bias stability ranging from 30 mdeg/h down to 15 μdeg/h, and an angular random walk (ARW) performance ranging from 8 mdeg/√h down to 40 μdeg/√h depending on the size of their sensing coils (3 m2 to 1000 m2) and on the application!
We report the evaluation of one long period grating (LPG) and one fiber Bragg grating (FBG) under gamma irradiation. The LPG was produced by the melting-drawing method based on CO2 laser assisted by a micro-flame and was engraved in a commercial single mode fiber SMF28 from Corning, grating length 25 mm, grating pitch of 720 μm. After the manufacturing of the grating, the fiber was re-coated with Acrylate and the grating was inserted into special ceramic case transparent to gamma radiation. The FBG is commercialized by Technica SA, and it is written in SMF-28 optical fiber (λ= 1546 nm; grating length of 12 mm; reflectivity > 80 %; bandwidth – BW @3 dB < 0.3 nm; side lobe suppress ratio – SLSR >15 dB; Acrylate recoating). By on-line monitoring of the LPG wavelength deep with an optical fiber interrogator during the irradiation exposure and pauses, both the irradiation induced shift (maximum 1.45 nm) and the recovery (in the range of 200 pm) phenomena were observed. Temperature sensitivity of the LPS was not affected by gamma irradiation.
We study the effect of hydrogen gas diffusion in silica optical fibers on Brillouin and Rayleigh scatterings. By modeling hydrogen diffusion kinetics as a function of temperature and pressure and by measuring simultaneously Rayleigh and Brillouin scattering on G652 single-mode fiber samples during H2 desorption (previously exposed to 175 bars H2 at 80°C), we have demonstrated experimentally that acoustic velocity increases linearly with H2 concentration with a ratio of about (4.8 m/s) / (%mol H2).
This paper reviews and extends the work done on photodarkening by our project consortium and present our latest results
on bleaching and photodarkening mitigation in fiber lasers. We shows the need for a standard set-up to avoid
underestimation of photodarkening equilibrium losses and we suggest photodarkening losses scale with the square of Yb
doping level. Investigation on visible light emission suggest an interplay of visible light with the Yb excited level.
Finally we present an extensive investigation of photobleaching, both as post-irradiation and as simultaneous bleaching.
We show evidence photobleaching can effectively mitigate the impact of photodarkening on laser performance when
highly-doped Al-silicate fibers are used.
Distributed optical fiber sensors are a clue technology for the monitoring of geological repository for long-lived nuclear
wastes. Environment includes hydrogen whose influence on Rayleigh and Brillouin scatterings is experimentally
evaluated. Induced propagation losses are quantified, as a function of wavelength and fiber dopants. 1310nm resulted the
most favorable working wavelength. Distance range would anyway be reduced down to a hundred meter. We show
hydrogen also induces Brillouin frequency shifts, up to 21MHz which corresponds to large temperature and strain
measuring errors if not corrected. Fluorine fibers appeared more sensitive for short hydrogen exposure than other tested
fibers.
Flat gain EDFA are key devices in long haul DWDM systems. A flat gain is needed to ensure an adequate signal to noise ratio evolution between channels during transmission. The dissipative filter introduced between two sections of doped fiber inside the amplifier can have a small residual reflective contribution at a particular wavelength. We have investigated the impact of such a back reflection and shown it is negligible for EDFA operation.
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