Intermodal four-wave mixing in a higher-order-mode fiber

Intermodal Four-Wave Mixing Process in Strain-Induced Birefringent Multimode Optical Fibers

Our study investigated the partially degenerate intermodal four-wave mixing (IM-FWM) process in nonlinear multimode optical fibers with strain-induced birefringence. The difference in the refractive index along the two orthogonal directions was due to the photoelastic effect that occurred when the fiber under test (FUT) was subjected to uniformly applied diameter stress caused by winding on a cylinder of a given diameter. Our work analyzed how the nonlinear frequency conversion and the output modal field profiles depended on the degree of birefringence in FUT. The experimental results significantly affected the order of the excited moduli in fiber sections characterized by different amounts of birefringence. We also checked the efficiency of the FWM process for different polarizations of the pump beam to determine those for which the FWM process was most effective for the 532 nm sub-nanosecond pulses. More than 30% conversion efficiency was obtained for the FUTs with a length of tens of centimeters.

Broadband chromatic dispersion measurements in higher-order modes selectively excited in optical fibers using a spatial light modulator

We propose an improvement of the interferometric method used up to now to measure the chromatic dispersion in single mode optical fibers, which enables dispersion measurements in higher-order modes over a wide spectral range. To selectively excite a specific mode, a spatial light modulator was used in the reflective configuration to generate an appropriate phase distribution across an input supercontinuum beam. We demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach using chromatic dispersion measurements of the six lowest order spatial modes supported by an optical fiber in the spectral range from 450 to 1600 nm. Moreover, we present the results of numerical simulations that confirm sufficient selectivity of higher-order mode excitation.

Suppression of inter-modal four-wave mixing in high-power fiber lasers

For the inter-modal four-wave mixing (IMFWM) in high-power fiber lasers, the phase-matching frequency shift and coherence length are calculated to determine the fiber mode combinations corresponding to IMFWM peaks; then, the parameters of the laser are optimized accordingly to suppress the IMFWM. On the basis of laser parameter optimization, the fiber coiling method is applied to further suppress the IMFWM. To validate this method, a master oscillator power amplifier was configured with 20/400 fiber to produce IMFWM peaks at 1108 and 1071.6 nm in the output spectrum, and then those peaks were removed by reducing the bending radius of the fiber.

Several new directions for ultrafast fiber lasers [Invited]

Ultrafast fiber lasers have the potential to make applications of ultrashort pulses widespread - techniques not only for scientists, but also for doctors, manufacturing engineers, and more. Today, this potential is only realized in refractive surgery and some femtosecond micromachining. The existing market for ultrafast lasers remains dominated by solid-state lasers, primarily Ti:sapphire, due to their superior performance. Recent advances show routes to ultrafast fiber sources that provide performance and capabilities equal to, and in some cases beyond, those of Ti:sapphire, in compact, versatile, low-cost devices. In this paper, we discuss the prospects for future ultrafast fiber lasers built on new kinds of pulse generation that capitalize on nonlinear dynamics. We focus primarily on three promising directions: mode-locked oscillators that use nonlinearity to enhance performance; systems that use nonlinear pulse propagation to achieve ultrashort pulses without a mode-locked oscillator; and multimode fiber lasers that exploit nonlinearities in space and time to obtain unparalleled control over an electric field.

Raman-shifted wavelength-selectable pulsed fiber laser with high repetition rate and high pulse energy in the visible

A high-pulse-energy, diffraction-limited, wavelength-selectable, visible source, based on Raman frequency shifting of a frequency-doubled Yb-doped fiber laser, has been studied. The relative length-scaling laws of Raman gain and self-phase modulation push the design towards short fiber lengths with large core size. It is experimentally demonstrated that the Raman clean-up effect in a graded-index multi-mode fiber is not sufficient to obtain diffraction-limited beam quality in the short fiber length. Thus, a large-core photonic crystal fiber is used to maintain diffraction-limited performance and output pulse energies of ~1 μJ, at a 1-MHz repetition rate and 1.3-ns pulse-width are successfully achieved. This step-tunable visible source should find applications in photoacoustic microscopy.

Yb:fiber laser-based, spectrally coherent and efficient generation of femtosecond 1.3-μm pulses from a fiber with two zero-dispersion wavelengths

We report, to the best of our knowledge, the first experimental characterization of spectral coherence properties of wavelength conversion inside photonic crystal fibers with two zero-dispersion wavelengths (TZDWs) and demonstrate a low-noise femtosecond 1.3-μm source employing the TZDW fiber and a 1.3-W, 240-fs Yb:fiber amplifier as the seeding source. Theoretical investigation shows that pulse evolution in our TZDW fiber source is dominated by parametric amplification seeded by self-phase modulation broadening which efficiently converts the pump energy into two new wavelength bands in a deterministic manner, leading to low noise and coherent excitation of femtosecond pulses tunable in the 1.3-μm spectral region, with up to 3 nJ of pulse energy at 32% of conversion efficiency.

Detailed investigation of intermodal four-wave mixing in SMF-28: blue-red generation from green

A short piece of commercial-grade SMF-28 optical fiber is pumped with a 680 ps high-peak power green laser. Red Stokes and blue anti-Stokes beams are generated spontaneously from vacuum noise in different modes in the fiber via intermodal four-wave mixing. Detailed experimental and theoretical analyses are performed and are in reasonable agreement. The large spectral shifts from the pump protect the Stokes and anti-Stokes from contamination by spontaneous Raman scattering noise. This work highlights the predictive power and limitations of a theoretical model to explain the experimental results for a process that relies on the amplification of quantum vacuum energy over more than 11 orders of magnitude.

High-quality ultraviolet beam generation in multimode photonic crystal fiber through nondegenerate four-wave mixing at 532 nm

All-fiber ultraviolet (UV) light sources are of great practical interest for a multitude of applications spanned across different sectors, from industrial processes such as nonthermal, high-resolution materials processing, to biomedical applications such as eye surgery, to name a few. However, production of UV light sources with high beam quality has been a problem to this day as the fiber designs required to reach UV wavelengths by four-wave mixing with widely available pumps (i.e., 532 nm) are challenging because of their small size and increased risk of material damage. In this Letter, a specific pumping scheme is presented that allows the conversion of two pump photons in different modes to UV light in the fundamental mode and the corresponding idler in a higher order mode. The process has also been shown to work experimentally, and UV light at 390.5 nm in the fundamental mode was successfully generated.

Enhanced intermodal four-wave mixing for visible and near-infrared wavelength generation in a photonic crystal fiber

We demonstrate experimentally an enhanced intermodal four-wave mixing (FWM) process through coupling positively chirped femtosecond pulses into the deeply normal dispersion region of the fundamental mode of an in-house fabricated photonic crystal fiber (PCF). In the intermodal phase-matching scheme, the energy of the pump waves at 800 nm in the fundamental mode is efficiently converted into the anti-Stokes waves around 553 nm and the Stokes waves within the wavelength range of 1445-1586 nm in the second-order mode. The maximum conversion efficiency of η(as) and η(s) of anti-Stokes and Stokes waves can be up to 21% and 16%, respectively. The Stokes frequency shift Ω is 5580  cm(-1). The fiber bending and intermodal walk-off effect of pulses do not have significant influence on the nonlinear optical process.