Nonlinearity optimization of dissipative-soliton fiber laser for generation of pulses with 350 kW peak power Download: 619次
1 Introduction
The development of high-power ultrafast fiber lasers has been motivated by scientific research and industrial applications in these years[1–3]. These fiber lasers exhibit many outstanding advantages such as high mechanical stability, easy operation, low cost and high average power. Recent advances in both mode-locking method and fiber structure design have led to watt-level average power and sub-100-fs pulse duration directly from fiber laser oscillators, which fulfill the needs in many applications, such as biophotonics and nonlinear optics. The performance of the mode-locked fiber lasers in terms of average power, pulse energy and peak power can be further scaled up by using Yb-doped large-mode-area photonic crystal fiber (LMA-PCF)[4, 5]. However, the air-hole microstructure prevents it from easy connection with standard fiber elements.
The Yb-doped single-mode (SM) double-clad fiber (DCF) turns out to be more flexible than LMA-PCF. By taking advantage of high-power cladding pump, such fibers can also be spliced with any fiber elements, such as combiners and collimators, which makes it possible toward all-fiber structure. In 2001, the Yb-doped DCF laser was first reported by Hideur
In this paper, we proposed a novel nonlinearity optimization method to address this problem. Nonlinearity optimization is achieved by changing the intracavity distribution of passive fibers in an all-normal-dispersion (ANDi) mode-locked fiber laser. According to a numerical simulation, this nonlinearity optimization effectively increases the output pulse energy, while preserving a large output bandwidth and a short dechirped pulse duration, corresponding to a higher peak power. This method is verified to improve the performance of the DS fiber laser in the following experiment. The laser generates 37 nJ pulses at 82 MHz repetition rate. After compression, the dechirped pulse duration is 66 fs and peak power is as high as 350 kW. To alleviate the pedestal of dechirped pulses, we applied a vector-dispersion compressor (VDC) to independently adjust the third-order dispersion (TOD) of the compressor. As a result of partial compensation of accumulated inside the laser cavity, the root mean square (RMS) width of the autocorrelation (AC) trace is shortened from 91 fs to 81 fs.
Fig. 1. Schematic of the experimental setup. SF, spectral filter; PBS, polarizing beam splitter; gratings and G-T mirrors comprise the VDC, which is shown in the dotted frame. The two output beams are measured to analyze compression result with the grating pair only and VDC.
Fig. 2. Numerical simulation results of spectral bandwidth and pulse duration evolution in the laser cavity; the pulse enters the SMF-B after the spectral filter (SF).
2 Numerical simulation
Pulse evolution inside a DS fiber laser was investigated by numerically solving the nonlinear Schrödinger equation with gain[11, 12]. We used the standard split-step Fourier method in our simulation with the arrangement of elements in laser cavity as shown in Figure
According to the Ref. [13], the GVD should compensate the accumulation in laser cavity to maintain a stable single-pulse operation. For a certain total fiber length, the group-delay dispersion (GDD) of laser cavity is fixed regardless of different passive fiber distribution. Consequently, the maximum accumulation that the GVD can compensate is also decided. Note that in each fiber segment is different, which is determined by both fiber length and pulse peak power. Thus, we can scale up the output pulse energy without increasing accumulation by changing the distribution of passive fiber segments at a fixed passive fiber length.
Fig. 3. Numerical simulation results. (a) Numerical simulation results of spectral bandwidth (blue circle), dechirped pulse duration (red triangle) and direct output pulse energy (black square). Points A–F represent the different AB-ratios 0.5/0, 0.4/0.1, 0.3/0.2, 0.2/0.3, 0.1/0.4 and 0/0.5, respectively. (b) Autocorrelation trace of the transform-limited pulse of AB-ratio, A (black curve), D (blue curve) and F (red curve). (c) The output maximum and minimum average power of single-pulse operation versus different bandwidths of SF is shown, when AB-ratio is zero. (d) The maximum accumulated in the cavity of single-pulse operation versus different bandwidths of spectral filter is shown, when AB-ratio is zero.
To optimize the intracavity nonlinearity, we first use B-integral to analyze the of each fiber segment quantitatively. In the simulation, the B-integral is obtained for SMF-B , gain fiber and SMF-A , as shown in Figure
Unfortunately, the pedestal of dechirped pulse becomes more observable as the AB-ratio is reduced, which is shown in Figure
3 Experimental results
According to the numerical simulation result, we zeroed AB-ratio so as to support the highest pulse energy in the experiment[18]. To realize zeroed AB-ratio, we removed the passive fiber after the gain fiber, which was connected directly with the collimator (Thorlabs, Item#: F220APC-1064). The experimental setup is shown in Figure
Fig. 4. Experimental results. (a) Output average power (black square) and dechirped pulse duration (red triangle) versus pump power. (b) Pulse train, 50 ns/div, detected by photodiode (200 ps rising time) and analog oscilloscope (400 MHz bandwidth). Inset: two consecutive pulses, 2 ns/div, detected by photodiode (35 ps rising time) and oscilloscope (20 GHz bandwidth). (c) Autocorrelation trace of direct output pulse in a long scan range. Inset: autocorrelation of pulse dechirped by gratings (black solid curve) and transform-limited pulse. (d) Output spectrum when AB-ratio is 0 (black solid curve) and 0.32 (red dotted curve).
By adjusting the wave plates, the stable single-pulse operation is achieved over a pump power range from 4.4 W to 9.2 W, as shown in Figure
For comparison, we then changed the AB-ratio to 0.32, with the identical total passive fiber length, gain fiber length and other cavity parameters. These identical parameters promise the same total GVD and repetition rate. The fiber length of SMF-B is 0.38 m, and the SMF-A is 0.12 m. In this situation, the highest pulse energy of single-pulse operation is only 18 nJ. The pulse can be compressed to 88 fs. Thus, this comparison proves that the output pulse energy can be scaled up by decreasing AB-ratio.
As pulse energy rises up, the accumulation is enhanced. Correspondingly, the pedestals of dechirped pulses become more obvious. To alleviate pulse distortion simply and efficiently, the TOD of the compressor is proposed to partially compensate [19, 20]. However, the common grating pair provides the fixed GDD-to-TOD ratio. It is difficult to adjust the grating pair to compensate the independently, which always leads to large pedestal, as shown in Figure
Fig. 5. Autocorrelation trace of pulse dechirped by different bounce number of VDC. Inset: details on root of dechirped pulses.
4 Conclusion
In conclusion, we have proposed and demonstrated a solution to optimize the nonlinearity of DS mode-locked fiber laser in ANDi regime to scale up the pulse energy with sub-100-fs dechirped pulse duration. The pulse with 37-nJ energy is obtained from a DS cladding pumped Yb-fiber laser by using this method. After compression, the pulse duration is 66 fs and peak power is 350 kW. With the help of vector-dispersion compressor, the pedestal of the dechirped pulse is effectively suppressed. In the future, a systematical optimization on the total fiber length and bandwidth and shape of SF will be a promising route to further improve the performance of mode-locked fiber lasers.
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Han Chi, Bowen Liu, Youjian Song, Minglie Hu, Lu Chai, Weidong Shen, Xu Liu, Chingyue Wang. Nonlinearity optimization of dissipative-soliton fiber laser for generation of pulses with 350 kW peak power[J]. High Power Laser Science and Engineering, 2018, 6(2): 02000e27.