Optical frequency combs (OFCs) enable high resolution, sensitivity, and speed in spectroscopic measurements. An efficient way of generating an optical frequency comb in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) is the difference frequency generation (DFG) process, which involves the interaction of two input waves in a non-linear crystal, resulting in the generation of a third wave with a frequency that is the difference in frequency of the two input beams [1]. The classical way of extending the path of light-gas interaction in spectroscopic measurements, thus increasing the sensitivity, is to use multi-pass cells (MPC). However, MPCs have disadvantages related to the difficulty of aligning laser light into the cell or optical fringes. An alternative approach is to use the so-called antiresonant hollow-core fibres (ARHCF) [2]. ARHCFs are characterized by a wide low-loss transmission range in the mid-IR, high quality of the delivered beam, and their air core can be filled with the target gas sample, which makes them well suited for laser-based gas sensing.
We present an ultrabroadband, high-speed wavelength-swept source based on a self-modulated femtosecond oscillator. Photonic crystal fiber was pumped by a mode-locked Yb:CaF2 laser, resulting in a strong spectral broadening from 485 to 1800 nm. The pump laser cavity could be realigned in order to achieve total mode-locking of the longitudinal and transverse TEM00 and TEM01 electromagnetic modes. This led to spatial oscillations of the output beam, which induced modulation of the coupling efficiency to the fiber. Due to the fact that nonlinear spectral broadening was intensity dependent, this mechanism introduced wavelength sweeping at the fiber output. The sweeping rate could be adjusted between 7 and 21.5 MHz by changing the geometry of the pump cavity. By controlling the ratio of the transverse mode amplitudes, we were able to tune the sweeping bandwidth, eventually covering both the 1300 nm and 1700 nm bioimaging transparency windows. When compared with previously demonstrated wavelength-swept sources, our concept offers much broader tunability and higher speed. Moreover, it does not require an additional intensity modulator.
We present a direct comparison between two types of femtosecond 2 µm sources used for seeding of an ultrafast thulium-doped fiber amplifier based on all-normal dispersion supercontinuum and soliton self-frequency shift. Both nonlinear effects were generated in microstructured silica fibers, pumped with low-power femtosecond pulses at 1.56 µm originating from an erbium-doped fiber laser. We performed a full characterization of both nonlinear processes, including their shot-to-shot stability, phase coherence, and relative intensity noise. The results revealed that the solitons show comparable performance to supercontinuum in terms of relative intensity noise and shot-to-shot stability, despite the anomalous dispersion regime. Both sources can be successfully used as seeds for Tm-doped fiber amplifiers as an alternative to Tm-doped oscillators. The results show that the sign of chromatic dispersion of the fiber is not crucial for obtaining a stable, high-quality, and low-noise spectral conversion process when pumped with sub-50 fs laser pulses.
Supercontinuum generation (SG) in photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) usually takes advantage of soliton dynamics, when pump wavelength is located in the anomalous dispersion region near the zero-dispersion wavelength of the fiber. This results in broader bandwidth than pumping in the normal dispersion region (NDR). SG in NDR is of interest, because of its potential for high degree of coherence and low intensity fluctuations. It was experimentally demonstrated in silica fibers and PCFs pumped around 1000 nm, covering the visible and near-infrared. We developed an all-solid PCF with hexagonal lattice made from N-F2 capillaries, with lattice constant Λ=2.275 μm, filling factor d/Λ=0.9, and a solid N-F2 core with 2,5μm diameter. The capillaries were filled with thermally matched borosilicate glass rods with lower refractive index. The PCF has all-normal dispersion, flattened within 1400- 2750 nm (-35 to -29 ps/nm/km) and a local maximum of -29 ps/nm/km at 1550 nm. Measured attenuation in 1500-1600 nm is around 3.2 dB/m. Nonlinear coefficient calculated at 1550 nm is 17/W/m. We numerically investigate the evolution of supercontinuum formation with a maximum bandwidth of 900-2400 nm. Considered pump pulse lengths were between 1 ps and 50 fs, with corresponding peak powers from 20 kW to 200 kW. Measured coupling efficiency using 20× microscope objective was 50%. One-photon-per-mode noise was used to simulate pump noise and multi-shot SG spectra were calculated. Preliminary experimental results are in good agreement with developed model.
Passive harmonic-mode locking (PHML) of erbium-doped fiber laser with multilayer graphene is presented. The laser could operate at several harmonics (from 2nd to 21st) of the fundamental repetition frequency of the ring resonator (106 MHz). The highest achieved repetition rate was 2.22 GHz (which corresponds to the 21st harmonic) with 900 fs pulse duration and 50 dB of the supermode noise suppression. The saturable absorber was formed by multilayer graphene, mechanically exfoliated from pure graphite block through Scotch-tape and deposited on the fiber ferrule.
We report a compact, actively stabilized fiber-based mid-infrared frequency comb source covering the 6.5 – 9 μm wavelength range with up to 5 mW of average output power at 125 MHz repetition frequency.
Optical-optical double resonance (OODR) spectroscopy is a powerful tool for the experimental assignment of highly-excited molecular states, which in turn is needed for verification of the accuracy of theoretical predictions of high-temperature spectra observed in exoplanets and in combustion environments. Previous implementations of OODR used either continuous wave (cw) lasers, which limit the number of transitions that can be detected, or pulsed lasers, which limit the spectral resolution. Recently, we demonstrated OODR with a cw pump and a frequency comb probe and applied it to the detection and assignment of methane transitions in the 3ν 3 ← ν 3 range with sub-Doppler resolution over 200 cm -1 of bandwidth [1] . The pump [see Fig. 1(a) ] was a 1 W 3.3 µm idler of a cw optical parametric oscillator (cw-OPO), stabilized to the Lamb dip in a selected CH 4 transition in the ν 3 band using a signal from a reference cell. The probe was an amplified fully-stabilized Er:fiber comb ( f rep = 250 MHz), whose center wavelength was shifted to 1.67 µm using a soliton self-frequency shift fiber (SSSF). The sample of pure CH 4 was contained in an 80-cm-long single-pass cell cooled by liquid nitrogen. The probe spectra were detected using a Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS) with comb-mode-limited resolution [2] , and the final interleaved spectra had 2 MHz sampling point spacing. Figure 1(b) shows the 3ν 3 ← ν 3 R(1) transition at 6046.36008(5) cm -1 , detected with the pump on the ν 3 R(0) line. We measured, fit and assigned 36 probe transitions with the pump tuned to 9 different transitions. Figure 1(d) shows a comparison of the probe transition wavenumbers to predictions from the TheoReTS database [3] , demonstrating agreement within 1 cm -1 .
In this paper we present a dual-wavelength fiber mode-locked laser based on CVD-graphene saturable absorber (SA). The laser setup is based on two ring cavities connected by a common branch with a graphene SA. As a gain media erbium (Er) and thulium (Tm) doped active fiber were used. The laser generate optical pulses centered at 1558.5 nm and 1937 nm. The repetition rates and pulse durations were of 23.2 MHz, 16.42 MHz and 0.95 ps, 1.03 ps for the solitons generated in Er- and Tm-doped cavities, respectively.
