Optical Amplification and Spontaneous Emission in an Ar + Discharge

The relationship between optical amplification and spontaneous emission noise has been studied in an argon ion travelling wave amplifier by beat spectrum analysis. Different optical arrangements have been examined with both single and double pass amplification. The results establish that when coherent light travels through a gain tube, the amplified beam acquires intensity fluctuation noise which is greater than that of a Poissonian distribution (shot noise). The noise power is shown to be the same as that of an equivalent unamplified beam mixed with the amplified spontaneous emission from the gain tube. It is shown that such measurements provide a practical technique for the otherwise difficult determination of the degree of population inversion in the gain medium. They also give insight into the potential of optical amplifiers for enhancement of lidar and system performance.     

High-gain, polarization-preserving, Yb-doped fiber amplifier for low-duty-cycle pulse amplification

Amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) suppression techniques were utilized to fabricate a double-pass, Yb-doped amplifier with the noise properties of a single-pass amplifier. Simulations based on a rate equation model were used to analyze the ASE and the effectiveness of the suppression techniques. These techniques were implemented in an alignment-free, double-pass, Yb-doped fiber amplifier with a 26 dB gain at a wavelength 23 nm off the gain peak and a -48 dB noise floor while amplifying linearly polarized optical pulses with a low-duty cycle.     

Intensity noise reduction of twin beams by a passive semiconductor medium

Abstract

A passive optical system is proposed to explore the intensity quantum correlation of two twin beams to reduce the photon noise of one of them. It consists of using a semiconductor medium inside an optical cavity, which behaves as a nonlinear medium presenting a crossed Kerr effect. The intensity fluctuations of one beam modify the resonance condition of the cavity for the other beam and therefore its intensity. The medium is described microscopically within the two-level atom model. It is shown that, under typical experimental conditions, this system may produce noise reduction.     

Optical gain and stimulated emission in periodic nanopatterned crystalline silicon

Persistent efforts have been made to achieve efficient light emission from silicon in the hope of extending the reach of silicon technology into fully integrated optoelectronic circuits, meeting the needs for high-bandwidth intrachip and interchip connects. Enhanced light emission from silicon is known to be theoretically possible, enabled mostly through quantum-confinement effects. Furthermore, Raman-laser conversion was demonstrated in silicon waveguides. Here we report on optical gain and stimulated emission in uniaxially nanopatterned silicon-on-insulator using a nanopore array as an etching mask. In edge-emission measurements, we observed threshold behaviour, optical gain, longitudinal cavity modes and linewidth narrowing, along with a collimated far-field pattern, all indicative of amplification and stimulated emission. The sub-bandgap 1,278 nm emission peak is attributed to A-centre mediated phononless direct recombination between trapped electrons and free holes. The controlled nanoscale silicon engineering, combined with the low material loss in this sub-bandgap spectral range and the long electron lifetime in such A-type trapping centres, gives rise to the measured optical gain and stimulated emission and provides a new pathway to enhance light emission from silicon.     

抑制噪声的宽带碲基掺铒光纤放大器性能分析

设计了一个带光隔离器的复合型宽带碲基掺铒光纤放大器（EDTFA）,通过对该结构模型下的速率方程和光功率传输方程组的数值模拟,理论研究了EDTFA在插入光隔离器后的性能变化。研究表明,通过插入光隔离器抑制反向传输的放大自发辐射（ASE）噪声,可以有效地改善宽带EDTFA的信号增益和噪声特性。在光纤激活长度240cm、铒掺杂浓度2000ppm和前向泵浦功率200mW下,光隔离器插入在最佳位置处时,1540nm～1600nm波段内16路信道小信号增益分别提高了0.8dB～5．9dB,噪声系数降低了0.2dB～2．2dB。研究结果对于新型宽带EDTFA应用于WDM通信系统中具有理论指导意义。     

Room-temperature sub-diffraction-limited plasmon laser by total internal reflection

Plasmon lasers are a new class of coherent optical amplifiers that generate and sustain light well below its diffraction limit. Their intense, coherent and confined optical fields can enhance significantly light-matter interactions and bring fundamentally new capabilities to bio-sensing, data storage, photolithography and optical communications. However, metallic plasmon laser cavities generally exhibit both high metal and radiation losses, limiting the operation of plasmon lasers to cryogenic temperatures, where sufficient gain can be attained. Here, we present a room-temperature semiconductor sub-diffraction-limited laser by adopting total internal reflection of surface plasmons to mitigate the radiation loss, while using hybrid semiconductor-insulator-metal nanosquares for strong confinement with low metal loss. High cavity quality factors, approaching 100, along with strong λ/20 mode confinement, lead to enhancements of spontaneous emission rate by up to 18-fold. By controlling the structural geometry we reduce the number of cavity modes to achieve single-mode lasing.     

环形腔中非线性周期结构介质的双稳态和光限

研究了环腔中的非线性周期结构介质的光学双稳态和光限现象，建立了输入光强与输出光强关系的表达式。理论上给出了临界入射光强低达１０＾７Ｗ／ｃｍ＾２的光学双的条件和非常有效的限光作用的条件。     

Evidence for amplified interband spontaneous emission in Si-based trans-column quantum dots

Si-based trans-column semiconductor quantum dots (TCQDs) are created as a new class of Si-based self-assembling nanostructures in an attempt to realize an efficient Si-based light emitter with light amplifying characteristics. A high value of quantum efficiency has been obtained for EL at low temperature, and amplified spontaneous emission of interband radiative recombination has been observed under visible, pulsed laser excitation for GaSb TCQDs embedded in Si.     

Amplified spontaneous emission in a Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier

Amplified spontaneous emission power and contrast ratio in a linear miltipass Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier with a wavelength centered at 1054 nm are calculated and measured. It is shown that the passive losses of a seed pulse and the losses in coupling to the regenerative amplifier cavity mode degrade the intensity contrast ratio to 10(-6)-10(-7). The advantage of an optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier with respect to the contrast ratio is discussed.     

Discussion on the improvement of opto-RF link properties by using a bipolar cascade laser source

This paper studies the possible improvement in RF link properties that can stem from electrically cascading several laser sources and combining the light from each source into a single information-carrying light beam. The effect of carrier recycling is first studied within a discrete architecture consisting of n individual laser diodes macroscopically connected in series. An RF link gain improvement proportional to n², and a link noise figure improvement proportional to n is found. The model is validated by experimental data. The architecture nonetheless carries some drawbacks, including the need for a zero-loss optical combining device to benefit from the RF link gain improvement, and some bandwidth shortcomings. The effect of carrier recycling within an integrated laser device, a so-called bipolar cascade laser, is then studied. In order to push back the limitations of the discrete architecture, the device consists of n active regions integrated into a single laser cavity. A rate equation model is applied to this promising structure and it is found that, in good agreement with previously published results, the external efficiency is expected to increase by a factor of n, leading to a possible RF link gain improvement by a factor of n². However, because the laser noise is dominated by the photon corpuscular noise, a weak influence of electrically cascading active junctions into a single laser cavity on the laser intensity noise, and thus on the link noise figure, is expected     

Noise of He-Cd laser and its suppression

Linear relations have been observed between the reciprocal of the noise ratio and the reciprocal of the output power of the He-Cd laser as well as between the noise ratio and the net gain within the laser cavity. By a feedback method with an acoustooptic modulator in the laser cavity at the Brewster angle for low optical loss, a stable laser with high power output and low noise has been obtained. The noise ratio and the output power are 0.8% and 33 mW, respectively, at 4416 A     

Thermo-switchable multi-wavelength laser emission from a dye-doped nematic liquid-crystal device

A sandwich-type laser device with a surface-relief grating inside was infiltrated with dye-doped nematic liquid-crystals which functioned as gain media. The surface-relief grating was fabricated by soft lithographic technique on a sol-gel derived zirconium-doped hybrid film using a polydimethyl-siloxane replica. The optical properties of the distributed feedback (DFB) resonator were modified by introducing a high refractive index layer consisting of niobium pentoxide subsequently. Thermal induced shift of amplified spontaneous emission spectrum, switching of multi-wavelength DFB laser emission and occurrence of random lasing were demonstrated.     

Effect of the optical quality and gain characteristics of the active medium of a HF-excitation electric-discharge amplifier on radiation parameters in the zone of application

The results of investigation of the simultaneous effect of the optical quality and amplifying characteristics of the active medium of a pumped-through HF-excitation CO₂-amplifier are presented. The amplitude front of the light wave was restored by the measured distributions of the small-signal gain and the phase front —from the results of processing the holographic interferograms of gas flow.Mechanical Engineering Institute, St. Petersburg. Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 66, No. 1, pp. 56–60, January 1994.     

Optical emission patterns and microwave field distributions in a cylindrical microwave plasma source

A cylindrical high density (10¹² cm⁻³) large volume (32 cm in diameter and 50 cm in length) homogeneous argon plasma has been produced by a microwave with a frequency of 2.45 GHz and a power of 900 W without a magnetic field. The plasma source is based on a ring shaped rectangular waveguide with eight equally spaced slots in its inside wall. Several optical emission patterns are observed on different conditions and the microwave field is measured by a movable antenna, which showed a clear relationship between the optical emission patterns and the electron field distributions. A mode transition, from a TE_8j mode to a TE_16j mode, occurs when the gas pressure increases from 660 to 1000 Pa. And there is an optical emission pattern when the microwave power decreases from 900 to 300 W. All these phenomena are described in detail and analyzed according to the interactional theory of electrons in plasma with microwave.     

Effects of Electronic Quantum Interference, Photonic-Crystal Cavity, Spontaneous Emission, Longitudinal Field, Surface-Plasmon Modes, and Surface–Plasmon–Polariton for Optical Amplification

Some possibilities for coherent optical amplification of a normally incident and weak radiation field are reviewed based on various physical mechanisms, such as electronic quantum interference induced by a coupling laser field in a three-level system, field enhancement through the cavity confinement of a radiation field in a photonic crystal and field concentration seen in a transmitted near field through a metallic surface grating due to excitation of surface-plasmon-polariton modes. Numerical results are presented and discussed to demonstrate these interesting effects. The modification to the spontaneous emission inside a photonic crystal is also studied. The important role played by a longitudinal field resulting from the absorption by an induced three-dimensional plasma wave inside a doped semiconductor is analyzed using a nonlocal and nonadiabatic model. Moreover, the coupling between two-dimensional plasmons and surface plasmon modes in the nonretardation limit is explored.     

Random Lasing in π‐Conjugated Films and Infiltrated Opals

The properties of random lasers in π‐conjugated polymer films and solutions infiltrated into opal photonic crystals are reviewed. We show that random lasing is a generic phenomenon that occurs in disordered gain media at an excitation intensity regime higher than that giving rise to amplified spontaneous emission. The emission radiation is coherent as demonstrated by photon statistics methods, and its spectrum contains many laser modes from which a typical cavity length can be obtained using Fourier transform spectroscopy. Since the random cavities are independent from each other, we show that laser emission in several colors is possible when mixing different dyes in the same random cavities. In addition, it is demonstrated that random lasing is formed in many disordered media with various scattering properties ranging from a regime of light prelocalization to that of weak scattering.     

Absolute distance measurement with an optical feedback interferometer

An important use of the self-mixing effect inside a frequency-modulated single-mode laser diode is in laser velocimetry and range-finding applications. The optical beam reflected by a target and injected into the laser diode cavity modulated by a reshaped current is mixed with the light inside the cavity, causing variations of the optical output power. A theoretical analysis of this effect is proposed, based on the determination of the beat frequencies of the optical power variations, to improve the accuracy of laser distance measurement. A resolution of ?1.5 mm from 50 cm to 2 m is obtained when thermal effects are taken into account.     

Experimental comparison of autodyne and heterodyne laser interferometry using an Nd:YVO₄ microchip laser

Using an Nd:YVO? microchip laser with a relaxation frequency in the megahertz range, we have experimentally compared a heterodyne interferometer based on a Michelson configuration with an autodyne interferometer based on the laser optical feedback imaging (LOFI) method regarding their signal-to-noise ratios. In the heterodyne configuration, the beating between the reference beam and the signal beam is realized outside the laser cavity, while in the autodyne configuration, the wave beating takes place inside the laser cavity, and the relaxation oscillations of the laser intensity then play an important part. For a given laser output power, object under investigation, and detection noise level, we have determined the amplification gain of the LOFI interferometer compared to the heterodyne interferometer. LOFI interferometry is demonstrated to show higher performance than heterodyne interferometry for a wide range of laser powers and detection levels of noise. The experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical predictions.     

Effect of thermal noise on random lasers in diffusion regime

In this paper, we study the effects of thermal noise on the time evolution of a weak light pulse (probe) in the presence of a strong light pulse (pump) within a gain medium which includes random scatterer particles. Suitable thermal noise term is added to a set of four coupled equations including three diffusion equations for energy densities and a rate equation for the upper level population in a four-level gain medium. These equations have been solved simultaneously by Crank–Nicholson numerical method. The main result is that the back-scattered output probe light is increased as the thermal noise strength is increased and simultaneously, with the same rate, the amplified spontaneous emission is decreased. Therefore, the amplified response of the random laser in diffusion regime for the input probe pulse is enhanced due to effect of the thermal noise.     

主动光钟研究进展

自2005年至今，主动光钟经过了近20年的发展。主动光钟利用原子系综作为增益介质，其受激辐射可直接作为钟激光信号。因为主动光钟工作在坏腔区域，因此具有腔牵引抑制和窄线宽两个显著的优点，可以有效克服被动光钟存在的腔长热噪声问题。由于其优越的性能，主动光钟受到了国内外同行的广泛关注。根据实现方式不同，本文将主动光钟划分为原子束型主动光钟、基于激光冷却和光晶格囚禁的主动光钟、原子束及光晶格“复合型”主动光钟、法拉第主动光钟、离子阱囚禁型主动光钟以及热原子气室型主动光钟。对于不同类型的主动光钟，本文详细介绍了其实验及理论研究进展，并分析其优劣。最后，分析了主动光钟在精密测量领域的应用并展望了主动光钟的发展方向，为推动主动光钟的广泛应用提供借鉴。