Spontaneous and stimulated Brillouin scattering gain spectra in optical fibers

We study the Brillouin scattering behavior in several single-mode fibers with different waveguide characteristics in terms of their longitudinal mode structures in the gain spectrum, linewidth narrowing, and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) threshold levels. Evolution from spontaneous to SBS is investigated by monitoring the Brillouin line-shape and the behavior of the longitudinal acoustooptic resonance modes that exist in the core. We compare our results with the current theory of Brillouin scattering generated from noise in the undepleted pump approximation. We also present experimentally Brillouin gain spectra in the highly depleted pump regime, where there is no analytical solution, by showing the evolution of the gain spectrum as a function of the injected laser intensity.     

A review of stimulated Brillouin scattering excited with a broad-band pump laser

Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) excited by a pump laser with a bandwidth large compared to the Brillouin linewidth is reviewed. SBS amplifier results show that either for low gain or for short pulses, the broad-band SBS gain is substantially lower than the steady-state gain. In the high gain limit, however, the fast phase fluctuations that are typical of a broad-band pump have a small effect on amplifier gain. Results for SBS that grows from noise show that fast pump phase fluctuations affect the gain only under two conditions. The first is when the coherence length of the pump is shorter than the gain length in the SBS medium. The second is when the pump is made up of two or more temporal modes separated by more than the SBS linewidth and aberrated with independent spatial profiles. In this case, the quality of wavefront inversion may be badly degraded as well. Areas for further work, including competing nonlinearities, are discussed.     

Gain saturation in fiber Raman amplifiers due to stimulatedBrillouin scattering

The effects of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) on Raman gain are explored. Measurements of gain in a fiber Raman amplifier show a saturation at low gain levels. Experimental data and a theoretical model are presented, demonstrating that this saturation is due to pump depletion by SBS. This effect also leads to Raman gain fluctuations arising from mode partitioning in a multimode pump laser. Two ways to avoid the deleterious effects of SBS on the performance of Raman amplifiers are suggested. One is to use a multimode semiconductor laser with a modal linewidth of the order of a few hundred megahertz, which leads to a strongly reduced Brillouin gain coefficient. The second approach is to use very short pump pulses in a backward configuration     

Effect of laser mode structure on stimulated Brillouin scattering

The gain and reflectivity of the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) process used as a Stokes-wave generator are shown theoretically to be independent of the mode structure of the pump laser provided that the pump-laser mode spacing exceeds the Brillouin linewidth and that the laser coherence length exceeds the characteristic gain length of the SBS process. Under the same set of conditions, the gain of an SBS amplifier is found to depend on the degree of correlation between the laser and Stokes fields. However, due to nonlinear coupling, these two fields become correlated within several characteristic gain lengths, and the subsequent propagation of the two fields is governed by the same set of equations that apply for the case of a single-mode pump laser. These theoretical predictions are tested experimentally for an SBS generator using acetone, carbon disulfide, and methanol as the Brillouin-active media, and the results are in full agreement with the theoretical predictions.     

Linewidth narrowing in semiconductor laser pumped all-fibre Brillouin ring laser

Brillouin lasing in an all-fibre ring resonator made of polarisation-maintaining fibre using a semiconductor laser pump at 830 nm is reported. The stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) lasing threshold is 0.91 mW, and the Stokes output is polarised and exhibits linewidth narrowing.<>     

基于高非线性光纤中SBS效应的慢光系统

实验研究了高非线性光纤(HNLF)中受激布里渊散射(SBS)的阈值、增益谱、放大特性及其慢光特性,并与普通单模光纤(SMF)进行了对比分析。测量实验表明,HNLF在线宽100MHz的泵浦激光作用下,SBS的阈值为60mW,增益带宽为150MHz,获得的最大慢光延迟量将近15ns,延迟谱与增益谱较好对应。对基于SBS的未来全光通信系统中的高性能光延迟线或全光缓存器具有重要的参考价值。     

单频大功率光纤放大器中抑制受激布里渊散射的理论分析

对单频大功率光纤放大器中的受激布里渊散射(SBS)抑制问题进行了分析和模拟。建立了双包层光纤放大器的含有受激布里渊散射效应的传输方程组,并考虑了温度差对受激布里渊增益系数的影响。通过数值求解方程组研究了前向、后向和双向抽运方式下,抽运功率、对流系数、光纤长度和斯托克斯频率偏移对受激布里渊散射增益的影响。在抽运功率、对流系数和光纤长度均相同的条件下,后向抽运方式的受激布里渊增益最小;对流系数或光纤长度的减少会降低受激布里渊增益。计算了总抽运功率为1kW,三段抽运方式下的受激布里渊增益,其结果远远大于增益阈值。因此,设计单频大功率光纤放大器宜采用后向抽运方式,尽量减小光纤外表面空气的对流速度以增加温度差,同时应该尽量缩短光纤长度。     

Transient transverse stimulated Brillouin scattering with abroad-band pump

The threshold for stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), which can damage optical components and be an energy loss mechanism in high-power pulsed laser systems, can be increased by using a broadband laser or by segmenting the aperture in order to limit the interaction length. A theoretical model of transient broadband SBS is developed. The authors start by considering the case of transient SBS with a monochromatic pump and find the effective interaction length for a pump pulse of a given duration. Using this interaction length, they derive expressions for the threshold intensity and for the window size required to avoid SBS with a pulse of given power and duration. They compute the steady-state gain and threshold intensity as a function of bandwidth for a multimode laser with large mode spacing     

布里渊光子晶体光纤环形移频器

通过实验研究了一种光子晶体光纤环形移频器,该移频器基于布里渊频移原理,利用光子晶体光纤布里渊增益高、阈值低的特点,同时利用光纤环形腔选频放大技术获得窄线宽高增益激光输出。实验结果表明:在波长为1 548 nm单纵模光纤激光泵浦下,10 m长光子晶体光纤的受激布里渊散射阈值功率约为457mW,环形腔输出的受激布里渊散射Stokes光相对于入射光移频量为9.778GHz、线宽500 kHz,并且移频量可以通过温度进行微调。该移频器可以用于分布式光纤布里渊传感器和微波发生器。     

Characterization of Brillouin fiber generator and amplifier for optimized working condition of distributed sensors

The Brillouin fiber amplifier (BFA) has been used in Brillouin optical time and frequency domain analyzer based sensors. For BFA based distributed sensor the optimized working condition is to have the highest Brillouin gain, i.e., highest SNR, which avoids high pump depletion induced gain saturation. We have found that the optimum working condition for distributed sensor system is associated with the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) threshold for BFA, which can be experimentally determined with Stokes power inflexion and/or Stokes spectrum linewidth minimum methods. This threshold depends on both pump and probe power instead of just the pump power as in Brillouin fiber generator (BFG), as well as on sensing length as confirmed by our experimental results and theoretical simulation. This was achieved by introducing the concept of absorption coefficient of the sensing medium defined as the ratio of the total output power to the total input power. We find that the medium absorption is minimized when input Stokes power is an order of magnitude lower than BFA threshold. This minimum is a signature of the balance between maximum Stokes gain and pump depletion which is also the reason why Stokes spectrum linewidth goes through a minimum.     

Stimulated Brillouin scattering excited by a modulated pump wave insingle-mode fibers

The effects of modulation on the gain of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) are discussed. Three different modulation techniques, i.e. frequency shift keying (FSK), amplitude shift keying (ASK), and phase shift keying (PSK) are considered. The results show that the SBS threshold depends on the ratio between the spontaneous Brillouin linewidth and the bit rate. The SBS threshold for ASK and FSK is 6 dB higher at high bit rates, whereas the SBS threshold for PSK increases by 10dB for each factor of 10 increase in the bit rate     

一种利用布里渊谱宽确定光纤SBS阈值的新方法

针对传统的通过功率信息测量所得受激布里渊散射阈值偏高的问题,提出了一种利用布里渊散射谱宽确定光纤受激布里渊散射阈值的新方法。分析了本地外差检测的原理及布里渊散射谱宽与入纤光功率的关系;设计了基于本地外差检测的布里渊散射谱测量系统,在常温下对不同长度标准单模光纤的受激布里渊散射阈值进行了测量。实验结果表明:当光纤长度分别为48.8 km和9.5 km时,根据功率信息获得的受激布里渊散射阈值对应的布里渊散射谱宽均接近恒定值10 MHz,此时已发生严重的泵浦耗尽效应。利用布里渊散射谱表现出的低入纤功率时谱宽的线性下降特性和高入纤功率时谱宽的功率无关特性确定的两种光纤长度下的受激布里渊散射阈值分别为1.12 mW和3.8 mW,对应的布里渊散射谱宽分别为24.86 MHz和23 MHz,其值近似等于布里渊自然线宽。文中的研究结果对布里渊光时域反射系统最大入纤光功率的确定具有重要的参考价值。     

受激布里渊散射光束空间光强分布

将调Q的Nd:YAG激光脉冲聚焦到FC-72介质池中,利用电荷耦合器件(CCD)和数字图像处理技术,实验研究了后向受激布里渊散射(SBS)光斑的光强分布,获得了其光强分布及光斑大小随入射能量的变化规律。结果表明,在入射光束为基模高斯光束的条件下,随着入射光能量增大,受激布里渊散射光斑的空间光强分布由近高斯型变为高斯型。并且受激布里渊散射光斑大小总体上是随着入射光能量的增大而逐渐减小的。当入射能量在受激布里渊散射阈值附近时,受激布里渊散射光斑大小达到最大(大于入射光斑);当入射能量为3倍阈值以上时,受激布里渊散射光斑大小达到最小(小于入射光斑)。     

A performance analysis of all-optical clock extraction circuit based on stimulated Brillouin scattering

In this paper, we develop an analytical method to deal with the timing performance in an optical clock extraction circuit based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). Three kinds of SBS active filters are considered and their frequency-transfer functions are obtained under the assumption that pump depletion caused by SBS is negligible. When pump depletion is taken into account, an SBS active filter acts as a nonlinear filter. To investigate the timing performance at this situation, we introduce the concept of "dynamic frequency-transfer function" to describe its frequency-response property for a fixed-signal light and pump light. Using the obtained "frequency-transfer function," we give analytical expressions for both root-mean-square (rms) phase jitter and rms amplitude jitter of the extracted optical clock, in which we have taken the impacts of SBS gain, pump light linewidth, optical pulse chirp, and pump detuning into account. Finally, a detailed numerical investigation on the timing performance for the three active filters is presented.     

光纤拉曼放大器中级联的前向受激布里渊散射

研究了前向抽运和背向抽运方式下S波段分布式光纤拉曼放大器(FRA)中级联的受激布里渊散射(SBS)现象。用窄光谱带宽(<100MHz)的可调谐LD作为信号源,通过S波段分布式FRA,当被放大的信号功率超过单模光纤SBS的阈值时,出现了前向SBS。随着FRA抽运功率的提高,在斯托克斯区,出现了级联的SBS线,信号的功率转换为SBS功率,在实验中观测到偶数阶的SBS谱线功率大于奇数阶的Brillouin Rayleigh散射线。当进一步增加FRA的抽运功率,其增益下,噪声变大,SBS的串扰破坏了FRA特性,使其无法在密集波分复用(DWDM)光纤传输系统中使用,因此需要严格地控制入纤的信号功率和FRA抽运功率。在实验中还观测到在FRA中被放大的信号光和SBS线两侧的伴线。     

脉冲光布里渊散射信号的拉曼放大研究

实验研究了前向拉曼泵浦方式下脉冲信号光产生的自发布里渊散射信号和受激布里渊散射(SBS)信号的拉曼放大规律。拉曼泵浦放大自发布里渊散射信号时,随泵浦功率增大会出现SBS现象,对散射信号的放大由拉曼放大和布里渊放大两部分引起,因此增益较大,当拉曼泵浦功率为1 000 mW时Stokes光增益可达54 dB。拉曼泵浦放大SBS信号时,放大过程中只存在拉曼放大。且当泵浦功率增大至600 mW时,会引起多级布里渊散射,致使一级Stokes和泵浦能量会转移到下一级布里渊散射,一级Stokes光增益饱和并下降。     

180 W单频全光纤激光器

高功率单频光纤激器在相干探测、功率光谱合成等方面具有广泛的应用前景。分析了高功率单频光纤激光器中受激布里渊散射效应的抑制方法,研究了放大级特性对受激布里渊散射效应的影响。采用线宽为70 kHz的单频光纤激光器作为种子源,经两级光纤放大,实现了中心波长1 064.1 nm、线宽70 kHz、最高功率为180 W的单频全光纤激光输出,光-光转换效率71.1%,光束质量Mx2=1.2,My2=1.21。分析了改变放大级特性前后输出功率提升的原因,认为改变放大级的温度分布减小了受激布里渊散射效应的增益系数,提高了输出激光的受激布里渊散射阈值,促使改变放大级温度分布后的输出功率大幅提高。该激光器的输出功率仅受限于泵浦功率,进一步提高泵浦功率,有望实现更高功率的单频光纤激光输出。     

Numerical model of stimulated Brillouin scattering excited by amultiline pump

A theoretical formulation and numerical simulation of the process of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) excited by a multiline incident beam is presented. The one-dimensional code includes pump depletion and contributions from resonant and off-resonant acoustic gratings. For line separations up to the order of the spontaneous Brillouin linewidth, gain enhancement is accompanied by phase shifts between lines due to complex, off-resonant terms, which may result in a degradation of conjugation fidelity. For larger frequency separations, the degree of amplification is dependent on the ratio of the coherence length of the pump line spectrum to the SBS gain length. Comparisons with experimental data on reflectivity versus line separation show very good agreement     

Tunable and narrow linewidth multi-wavelength Brill- ouin-erbium fiber laser using dual-wavelength pumping

We demonstrate a multi-wavelength Brillouin-erbium fiber laser (BEFL) with narrow linewidth and tunable wavelength interval using dual-wavelength Brillouin pumping. The generation of multi-wavelength output in BEFL is based on the combination of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) and four-wave mixing (FWM) effect in a fiber cavity. The tunable wavelength interval is determined by the artificially controlled wavelength interval of the pumping lasers. The BEFL could compress a 1 MHz pump laser to a 340 Hz Brillouin Stokes laser, which proves the BEFL has excellent capability of linewidth compression. An erbium-doped fiber pumped by 980 nm laser is inserted into the cavity to further amplify the Brillouin laser. The wideband multi-wavelength BEFL covering over 50 nm is successfully generated when the 980 nm pump power is 400 mW. These features of multi-wavelength BEFL provide an effective method for optical communication systems and optical fiber sensing.     

包层抽运掺镱光纤激光器中受激拉曼散射和受激布里渊散射效应

高功率光纤激光器大多选用掺镱双包层光纤作为增益介质,由于光纤尺寸较小,极易在光纤谐振腔中产生受激布里渊散射、受激拉曼散射效应。包层掺镱双包层光纤激光器中一旦发生受激拉曼散射和受激布里渊散射效应,其产生高强度信号成为高功率光纤激光器的主要噪声来源,影响激光输出的特性和稳定性。对包层抽运掺镱光纤激光器中的受激布里渊散射和受激拉曼散射进行了实验研究,在单模双包层光纤中观察到受激布里渊散射和受激拉曼散射。实验结果表明,在光纤谐振腔中,抽运方式、谐振腔输出镜损耗、受激瑞利散射对受激布里渊散射的影响较大,尤其是受激瑞利散射为谐振腔提供了附加反馈,不仅压窄激光信号的线宽,而且使得受激布里渊散射的阈值迅速降低。