Investigation of Brillouin effects in small-core holey optical fiber: lasing and scattering

Higher-order dispersion and nonlinear effects of optical fibers under septic self-steepening and self-frequency shift

We investigate the modulational instability (MI) of a continuous wave (cw) under the combined effects of higher-order dispersions, self steepening and self-frequency shift, cubic, quintic, and septic nonlinearities. Using Maxwell's theory, an extended nonlinear Schrödinger equation is derived. The linear stability analysis of the cw solution is employed to extract an expression for the MI gain, and we point out its sensitivity to both higher-order dispersions and nonlinear terms. In particular, we insist on the balance between the sixth-order dispersion and nonlinearity, septic self-steepening, and the septic self-frequency shift terms. Additionally, the linear stability analysis of cw is confronted with the stability conditions for solitons. Different combinations of the dispersion parameters are proposed that support the stability of solitons and the occurrence of MI. This is confronted with full numerical simulations where the input cw gives rise to a broad range of behaviors, mainly related to nonlinear patterns formation. Interestingly, under the activation of MI, a suitable balance between the sixth-order dispersion and the septic self-frequency shift term is found to highly influence the propagation direction of the optical wave patterns.

Imaging enhancement based on stimulated Brillouin amplification in optical fiber

The detection of weak optical signals embedded in strong background illumination has broad application prospects. We propose an imaging enhancement method based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in a single-mode fiber, which is capable of amplifying the weak optical signal while neglecting the broadband background noise because of its narrow gain bandwidth. In experiment, a high gain of 60 dB was achieved. An imaging enhancement experiment was carried out, where a target which cannot be seen because of transmission loss could be clearly captured with the amplification of SBS in the fiber. Because of the employment of continuous pump rather than a pulsed pump, this system has wide application in the monitoring of non-cooperative targets.

Stimulated Brillouin scattering of visible light in small-core photonic crystal fibers

We characterize stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) of visible light in small-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF). Threshold powers under 532 nm excitation agree with established theory, in contrast to measured values up to five times greater than expected for Brillouin scattering of 1550 nm light. An isolated, single-peaked signal at a Stokes shift of 33.5 GHz is observed, distinct from the multi-peaked Stokes spectra expected when small-core PCF is pumped in the infrared. This wavelength-dependence of the Brillouin threshold, and the corresponding spectrum, are explained by the acousto-optic interactions in the fiber, governed by dimensionless length scales that relate the modal area to the core size, and the pump wavelength to PCF hole pitch. Our results suggest new opportunities for exploiting SBS of visible light in small-core PCFs.

Potential for simultaneous strain and temperature sensing based on Brillouin scattering in an all-solid photonic bandgap fiber

We identify the Brillouin scattering spectrum in both the core and the cladding of an all-solid photonic bandgap fiber for the first time to our knowledge. A multipeak Brillouin spectrum with several frequency shifts and particular linewidths is investigated and related to the structural properties accordingly. Because of the different frequency dependences on the surroundings in the core and the cladding, the proposed structure exhibits potential for use as simultaneous temperature and strain sensors.

Observation of stimulated Brillouin scattering in polymer optical fiber with pump-probe technique

Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in a perfluorinated graded-index polymer optical fiber (POF) with 120 μm core diameter was experimentally observed for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, at 1.55 μm wavelength with the pump-probe technique. Compared to spontaneous Brillouin scattering previously reported, the Brillouin gain spectrum (BGS) was detected with an extremely high signal-to-noise ratio, even with a short POF (1 m) and scrambled polarization state. We also investigated the BGS dependences on probe power and temperature, which indicate that SBS in a POF measured with this technique can be utilized to develop high-accuracy temperature sensing systems.

Widely tunable multi-wavelength Brillouinerbium fiber laser utilizing low SBS threshold photonic crystal fiber

A widely tunable low stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) photonic crystal fiber (PCF) based multi-wavelength Brillouin-erbium fiber laser is presented. The fiber laser structure utilizes a pre-amplified Brillouin pump (BP) technique with 100 m of PCF and a tunable band-pass filter within a Fabry-Perot cavity. A total of 14 Brillouin Stokes lines can be tuned over 29 nm from 1540 nm to 1569 nm. The wide tunability was only limited by the bandwidth of the tunable band-pass filter. A constant channel spacing of 0.079 nm and signal to noise ratio (SNR) of more than 20 dB for each Brillouin Stokes lines were also observed.

Brillouin characterization of holey optical fibers

We report the results of detailed measurements on the Brillouin frequency shift (BFS), gain bandwidth, and gain coefficients of several small-core holey optical fibers (HFs) of both uniform and axially varying structural characteristics and compare these with measurements on more conventional fibers. Our measurements show that the BFS of HFs is first-order proportional to the modal index for light propagating along the fiber and is thus extremely sensitive to its precise structural parameters. Our results highlight the possibility of using distributed Brillouin scattering measurements to perform nondestructive structural characterization of HFs, and the possibility of producing Brillouin-suppressed HFs using controlled structural variation along the fiber length.

Dependence of the brillouin frequency shift on strain and temperature in a photonic crystal fiber

The dependence of the Brillouin frequency shift on strain in a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) was measured at a wavelength of 1320 nm for the first time to the authors' knowledge. Together with measurements of the dependence of the Brillouin frequency shift on temperature in the PCF, we demonstrate the feasibility of the highly precise simultaneous measurement of temperature and strain by use of the PCF in a distributed Brillouin sensing system with a spatial resolution of 15 cm.

Brillouin scattering spectrum in photonic crystal fiber with a partially germanium-doped core

The Brillouin scattering spectrum in a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with a partially Ge-doped core is measured with a pump-probe technique at a wavelength of 1320 nm. One main peak and four subpeaks are observed. The main peak has a Lorentzian shape with the bandwidth deltanuB = 66 MHz. Its intensity is six times higher than that from a standard single-mode fiber measured under the same conditions, which is consistent with the ratio of (1/Aeff(PCF))/(1/Aeff(SMF)), where Aeff is the effective area of the fibers. The temperature coefficient for the main peak is 0.96 MHz/degrees C. We believe that the subpeaks are caused by an interaction between light-wave and guided modes of longitudinal acoustic waves in the graded-Ge-doped region, the silica region, and the microstructured cladding. An analysis of the guiding and antiguiding properties of the PCF for acoustic waves is presented.

Four-wave mixing instabilities in photonic-crystal and tapered fibers

Four-wave mixing instabilities are theoretically studied for continuous wave propagation in ultrasmall core photonic-crystal and tapered fibers. The waveguide, or geometrical, contribution to the overall dispersion of these structures is much stronger than in conventional fibers. This leads to the appearance of unstable frequency bands that are qualitatively and quantitatively different from those seen in conventional fibers. The four-wave mixing theory developed here is based on the full wave equation, which allows rigorous study of the unstable bands even when the detunings are of the order of the pump frequency itself. Solutions obtained using the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation, which is an approximate version of the full wave equation, reveal that it suffers from several deficiencies when used to describe four-wave mixing processes.