Photonic crystal fibers guide light by corralling it within a periodic array of microscopic air holes that run along the entire fiber length Largely through their ability to overcome the limitations of conventional fiber optics—for example, by permitting low-loss guidance of light in a hollow core—these fibers are proving to have a multitude of important technological and scientific applications spanning many disciplines The result has been a renaissance of interest in optical fibers and their uses

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/299/5605/358.full.pdf

Photonic crystal fibers

A topical review of numerical and experimental studies of supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fiber is presented over the full range of experimentally reported parameters, from the femtosecond to the continuous-wave regime. Results from numerical simulations are used to discuss the temporal and spectral characteristics of the supercontinuum, and to interpret the physics of the underlying spectral broadening processes. Particular attention is given to the case of supercontinuum generation seeded by femtosecond pulses in the anomalous group velocity dispersion regime of photonic crystal fiber, where the processes of soliton fission, stimulated Raman scattering, and dispersive wave generation are reviewed in detail. The corresponding intensity and phase stability properties of the supercontinuum spectra generated under different conditions are also discussed.

Supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fiber

This Review summarizes the simultaneous transmission of several independent spatial channels of light along optical fibres to expand the data-carrying capacity of optical communications. Recent results achieved in both multicore and multimode optical fibres are documented.

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Space-division multiplexing in optical fibres

Extremely narrow optical resonances in cold atoms or single trapped ions can be measured with high resolution. A laser locked to such a narrow optical resonance could serve as a highly stable oscillator for an all-optical atomic clock. However, until recently there was no reliable clockwork mechanism that could count optical frequencies of hundreds of terahertz. Techniques using femtosecond-laser frequency combs, developed within the past few years, have solved this problem. The ability to count optical oscillations of more than 1015 cycles per second facilitates high-precision optical spectroscopy, and has led to the construction of an all-optical atomic clock that is expected eventually to outperform today's state-of-the-art caesium clocks.

Optical frequency metrology

We stabilized the carrier-envelope phase of the pulses emitted by a femtosecond mode-locked laser by using the powerful tools of frequency-domain laser stabilization. We confirmed control of the pulse-to-pulse carrier-envelope phase using temporal cross correlation. This phase stabilization locks the absolute frequencies emitted by the laser, which we used to perform absolute optical frequency measurements that were directly referenced to a stable microwave clock.

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Carrier-envelope phase control of femtosecond mode-locked lasers and direct optical frequency synthesis

We demonstrate experimentally for what is to our knowledge the first time that air–silica microstructure optical fibers can exhibit anomalous dispersion at visible wavelengths. We exploit this feature to generate an optical continuum 550 THz in width, extending from the violet to the infrared, by propagating pulses of 100-fs duration and kilowatt peak powers through a microstructure fiber near the zero-dispersion wavelength.

Visible continuum generation in air–silica microstructure optical fibers with anomalous dispersion at 800 nm

We analyze the waveguide properties of microstructure optical fibers consisting of a silica core surrounded by a single ring of large air holes. Although the fibers can support numerous transverse spatial modes, coupling between these modes even in the presence of large perturbations is prevented for small core dimensions, owing to a large wave-vector mismatch between the lowest-order modes. The result is an optical fiber that can appear single mode with propagation properties that can be achieved only in multimode waveguides.

Optical properties of high-delta air silica microstructure optical fibers.

In accordance with the invention, light is coupled from a plurality of semiconductor emitters to a cladding-pumped fiber via tapered fiber bundles fusion spliced to the cladding-pumped fiber. Individual semiconductor broad stripe emitters can be coupled to individual multimode fibers. The individual fibers can be bundled together in a close-packed formation, heated to melting temperature, drawn into a taper and then fusion spliced to the cladding-pumped fiber. Advantageously, the taper is then overcoated with cladding material such as low index polymer. In addition, a fiber containing a single-mode core can be included in the fiber bundle. This single-mode core can be used to couple light into or out of the single-mode core of the cladding-pumped fiber.

Tapered fiber bundles for coupling light into and out of cladding-pumped fiber devices

Raman amplification is added to a transmission system to provide an increase in power budget allowing for a four-fold upgrade in capacity either by TDM or WDM. Here, a TDM upgrade from 2.5 to 10 Gb/s and a WDM upgrade from a single 10-Gb/s channel to four channels of 10 Gb/s each were experimentally verified with an improvement in the power budget of 7.4 dB. Raman gain is an attractive upgrade method for installed systems requiring no changes to the fiber span.

Andrew John Stentz

Papers

Carrier-envelope phase control of femtosecond mode-locked lasers and direct optical frequency synthesis

Visible continuum generation in air–silica microstructure optical fibers with anomalous dispersion at 800 nm

Optical properties of high-delta air silica microstructure optical fibers.

Tapered fiber bundles for coupling light into and out of cladding-pumped fiber devices

Capacity upgrade of transmission systems by Raman amplification