Optical Addressing of Pulses in a Semiconductor-Based Figure-of-Eight Fiber Laser

D. Chaparro and Salvador Balle

Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 064101 – Published 8 February 2018

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate that optical pulses emitted by a semiconductor-based polarization-maintaining figure-of-eight fiber laser are temporal localized structures that can be individually switched on and off by means of optical reinjection of single pulses at different delay times. We also explore the formation of an equispaced cluster of localized structures that can be interpreted as a portion of an underlying periodic pattern—the harmonic state—and we provide a basic theoretical scenario for explaining the observations.

Received 7 June 2017
Revised 29 August 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.064101

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Pattern formation

Laser dynamics Nonlinear waves Semiconductor lasers

Nonlinear Dynamics

Authors & Affiliations

D. Chaparro¹ and Salvador Balle^1,2

¹Departamento de Física, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Carretera de Valldemossa, km 7.5, E-07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain
²Institut Mediterrani d’Estudis Avançats, IMEDEA (CSIC-UIB), Carrer de Miquel Marqués 21, E-07190 Esporles, Spain

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Issue

Vol. 120, Iss. 6 — 9 February 2018

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Images

Figure 1
Schematics of the F8L setup. SOA: semiconductor optical amplifier. circ: circulator. ISO: optical isolator. PBS: polarization beam splitter. Int. mod: intensity modulator. See the text for a detailed description.
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Figure 2
(a) (Top) Time trace (blue) showing a single pulse per round-trip with a fundamental period of 55 ns at $I = 150 mA$ (trace displaced upwards by 50 units for clarity). (Bottom) Pulse train (orange) with two pulses per round-trip (the second pulse is 15 ns from the first). (b) Optical spectrum of the traces in (a) where the solid line (blue) stays for the case of one pulse per round-trip and the dashed line (orange) for two pulses per round-trip. (c) (Top) rf spectrum of the fundamental state. (Bottom) State with two pulses per round-trip (the bottom spectrum is displaced downwards by 40 units for clarity). (d) Space-time diagram showing the stability of the two-pulse state over $\sim 1000$ round-trips.
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Figure 3
A blue time trace of the fundamental state ( $I = 150 mA$ ) indicating a pulsing period of 55 ns. The orange time trace was recorded after the injection of a second pulse with a delay of 17 ns (bias current in SOA2, $I_{r} = 80 mA$ ). The green time trace was recorded after injection of a second pulse with a delay of 17 ns (bias current in SOA2, $I_{r} = 0 mA$ ). The second pulse now appears with a delay of $\sim 15 ns$ .
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Figure 4
Time traces showing the optical addressing of pulses with a reinjection delay of $\sim 15 ns$ . (a) Fundamental state with pulses at $\sim 55 ns$ . (b) State with two pulses per period obtained by reinjection of a pulse. (c) State with three pulses per period obtained by reinjection of the second pulse in (b). (d) State with two pulses per period with a spacing of 30 ns obtained from (c) by reinjection of the first pulse in (c). (e) State (b) recovered from (c) by reinjection of the second pulse.
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Figure 5
Creation of a cluster of pulses with spacing $\sim 2 ns$ . (a) Fundamental state. (b) Reinjection of the first pulse in (a) at 10 ns. (c) Displacement of the second pulse in (b) at 2 ns from the first pulse when the reinjection current is turned off. From (d)–(j), iterative procedure of the previous steps to create a six pulse cluster. (k) Erasure of the sixth pulse of the package by reinjecting on top of it. See the text for explanation.
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Figure 6
Erasure of the central pulse of a three-pulse cluster.
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