Patent Grant
8077747
The present invention relates to a multicomponent phosphate glass based optical device and a method of producing the optical device.
The present invention includes the use of various technologies referenced and described in references identified in the following LIST OF REFERENCES by the author(s) and year of publication. The contents of these documents are incorporated in their entirety herein by reference.
Since the demonstration of the holographic side writing technique for fabricating gratings in silica based optical fibers, there has been sustained interest toward the development of high-performance single frequency fiber grating-based rare earth-doped fiber lasers and other optical devices based on gratings formed in a fiber. The potential attraction of such optical devices is the simplicity of the fabrication, involving just the ultraviolet (UV) writing of grating(s) into a silica based fiber. In addition, the wavelength sensitivity to temperature is dictated by the sensitivity of the grating, which is over an order of magnitude lower than that for semiconductor lasers.
In the following, the problems facing the lasers that use a grating are discussed. However, other optical devices (for example a wave filter) that use the same grating are faced with similar problems. For a laser, to ensure robust single frequency operation without mode-hopping, these silica based lasers need to be short, a few cm in length at most. While the earlier grating-based silica fiber lasers relied on the availability of conventional erbium-doped germanosilicate fibers, the laser efficiencies and output powers were however low, typically 0.1% and in the mW regime respectively. These problems facing the silica based lasers are a direct consequence of the low pump absorption due to the short fiber cavity length. Increasing the erbium dopant concentration as a way of increasing the pump absorption is however problematical because germanosilicate fibers, while having the merit of being photosensitive, are particularly prone to ion clustering, which not only leads to a degradation in efficiency but gives rise to instabilities in the laser as well. Thus, while the conventional lasers showed good characteristics in many respects, the need for amplification in order to boost the low laser powers to useful levels of a mW or more is a drawback that prevents the existing silica based lasers from achieving a high performance low noise source.
In the past few years, considerable effort has been put into investigating possible solutions for increasing the operating power of short cavity fiber lasers. While the pump absorption can be increased by over an order of magnitude simply by pumping at an appropriately shorter wavelength, this is unlikely to be a fully practical solution until the arrival of reliable green laser diodes. On the other hand, Er3+:Yb3+ codoped fibers are an immediate possibility. In this scheme, a 980 nm pumped light is mainly absorbed by the Yb3+ ions and then transferred to the Er3+. In addition to the large 980 nm absorption cross-section of Yb3+ (by an order of magnitude greater than that of Er3+), a higher Yb3+ ion concentration is also attainable without detrimental side-effects. The 980 nm pump absorption can therefore be typically increased by up to two orders of magnitude with this approach, with a corresponding increase in laser efficiency and output power.
However, two problems remain for obtaining a practical single frequency Er:Yb grating-based fiber laser. One is the lack of photosensitivity in the phosphosilica and phosphate glass based fibers, the glass hosts that enable large Er:Yb doping levels and efficient Yb3+ to Er3+ energy transfer. While tin-codoping can provide some enhancement in photosensitivity, the UV exposure time required to reach a suitable grating strength is still very long. Reasonable writing times can be achieved with the incorporation of hydrogen loading, but substantial losses are incurred at the shorter (pump) wavelengths and lead to a loss in device efficiency. In addition, such lasers were observed to operate in both orthogonally polarized modes, which is unattractive for many telecommunications applications.
Another approach could surmount these problems. By adopting an Er3+:Yb3+ fiber with a photosensitive annular region surrounding the phosphosilicate core, strong gratings could be written with relative ease in spite of the non-photosensitive core, enabling efficient lasers to be realized (see for example L. Dong, W. H. Loh, J. E. Caplen, J. D. Minelly, K. Hsu, and L. Reekie, “Efficient single-frequency fiber lasers with novel photosensitive Er/Yb optical fibers,” Opt. Lett., vol. 22, pp. 694-696, 1997, the contents of which are entirely incorporated herein by reference).
In addition, the resulting silica based fiber lasers were observed to lase only in a single polarization state and slope efficiencies of 25% were reported. However, the known lasers have a low power output, on the order of a few mW, which makes these lasers unsuitable for the needs of CATV for example, which would require more than a few mW of output power.
Another route to increase the power output of silica based lasers is the fabrication of hybrid phosphate/silicate fiber devices. In these conventional hybrid devices, as shown in
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided an optical device including an optical fiber having a core including multicomponent phosphate glasses, and a cladding surrounding the core, and a first fiber Bragg grating formed in the first portion of the core of the optical fiber and having an index modulation amplitude greater than 2×10−5.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of modulating an index of refraction in an optical fiber that includes, providing the optical fiber having a core including multicomponent phosphate glasses, irradiating a first portion of the core of the optical fiber via a phase mask with laser pulses in the ultraviolet range to form a fiber Bragg grating within the first portion of the core, and heating the irradiated core to increase an index modulation amplitude within the core to above 2×10−5.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for generating a laser signal in a laser device having an optical fiber having a core that includes multicomponent phosphate glasses, the core having first and second portions surrounded by a cladding, and at least two fiber Bragg gratings in which an index modulation amplitude is greater than 2×10−5, the at least two fiber Bragg gratings disposed in the first portion of the core at a predefined distance from each other, the method including pumping from a multimode pump a multimode wave into the cladding corresponding to the second portion of the core, transmitting the pumped multimode wave from the cladding to the at least two fiber Bragg gratings, generating the laser signal between the at least two fiber Bragg gratings based on the pumped multimode wave, and outputting the generated laser signal through one of the at least two fiber Bragg gratings.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a laser device including an optical fiber having a core including multicomponent phosphate glasses, and a cladding surrounding the core, first and second fiber Bragg gratings formed in a first portion of the core of the optical fiber and having an index modulation amplitude greater than 2×10−5, and an optical cavity between the first and second fiber Bragg gratings and configured to amplify an electromagnetic wave reflected by the first and second fiber Bragg gratings to output a laser signal.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided an optical filter including an optical fiber having a core including multicomponent phosphate glasses, and a cladding surrounding the core, and a first fiber Bragg grating formed in a first portion of the core of the optical fiber and having an index modulation amplitude greater than 2×10−5. An input signal provided in the optical fiber is partially reflected and partially transmitted by the first fiber Bragg grating.
A more complete appreciation of the invention and many of the attendant advantages thereof will be readily obtained as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description when considered in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
a) and 3(b) are schematic diagrams of a phase mask according to one embodiment of the present invention;
a)-(f) show SEM and AFM images of the phase mask and a section analysis of the phase mask according to one embodiment of the present invention;
a) and (b) are graphs showing phosphate fiber Bragg grating transmission indicating high reflectivity and a partial decrease in reflectivity of the grating due to exposure to high temperature and also a reflection spectrum of the grating after thermal treatment according to one embodiment of the present invention;
a) to (c) are schematic diagrams of a DFB laser pumped with a single-mode pump diode, multimode pump diodes and a multiple DFB laser implementation;
A novel spliceless optical device that is capable of both (i) outputting a light signal having a high power output (in the orders of tens to hundreds of mW), and (ii) exhibiting photosensitive properties is discussed next.
Most glasses that are used in optical devices (fibers, lasers, etc.) that have a high solubility for erbium and ytterbium, such as phosphate and phosphosilicate glasses, also show a lack of photosensitivity that is necessary for fabrication of efficient fiber gratings. For laser emission to occur, the active medium is placed inside a resonant cavity. An optical feedback can be provided by the reflectivity of the end facets, by mirrors, by distributed feedback (DFB) Bragg gratings that act as mirrors, or by distributed Bragg reflectors (DBR), or by constructing a ring cavity structure. The laser emission occurs when the total gain overcomes the losses in the cavity. Hence, a minimum gain has to be achieved to reach the laser threshold condition.
As discussed above, conventional phosphate based lasers do not have good photosensitive properties and thus, good quality DFB or DBR cannot be made in this type of glasses.
Robust single mode (single wavelength) performance can be achieved using a very short cavity of less than about 5 cm together with a wavelength selective reflector. The output power is dictated by the total absorbed pump power, which is generally proportional to the number of active ions and therefore, proportional to the doping level, to the length of the doped fiber inside the cavity as well as to the crossectional area of the active material that is contained in the core of the doped fiber inside the fiber laser cavity. While longer cavities lead to more stringent requirements on the longitudinal mode selector, a larger crossectional area typically sacrifices single transverse mode operation of the laser.
Thus, output power must typically be traded off against single frequency and single-mode performance in conventional devices. The spectral linewidth of single frequency lasers, defined as the wavelength interval over which the magnitude of all spectral components is equal to or greater than a specified fraction of the magnitude of the component having the maximum value, is in general determined by a variety of noise contributions from the pump laser, the active medium itself, or the laser cavity.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) are formed in a multicomponent phosphate glass fiber as explained next.
The FBG 20 was formed by irradiating the fiber 100 with 193 nm-wavelength, high intensity pulses from an ArF excimer laser 104 through the phase mask 102. A wave having a wavelength between 190 and 196 nm is also possible. As shown in
In one embodiment, an optical filter includes an optical fiber having a core including multicomponent phosphate glasses, and a cladding surrounding the core, and a first fiber Bragg grating formed in a first portion of the core of the optical fiber and having an index modulation amplitude greater than 2×10−5. An input signal provided in the optical fiber is partially reflected and partially transmitted by the first fiber Bragg grating. The grating shown in
In one embodiment, short lengths (3-10 cm) of the multicomponent phosphate fibers were spliced to standard telecommunications fiber pigtails (Corning SMF-28) and positioned immediately behind the silica phase mask used to define the grating pattern. The mask 102 had a period of 976.3 nm, corresponding to a fringe pattern period of 488.15 nm in the fiber. In another embodiment, the diffraction efficiency of the mask was controlled by modifying the depth of the grooves of the phase mask, thus controlling the fringe contrast and the amount of zero order light that reached the fiber without diffraction. The improved diffraction efficiency has been achieved by modifying the depth of the grooves in the phase mask. A GSI Lumonics PM-848 laser equipped with an unstable resonator cavity and filled with an ArF mixture to generate the 193 nm wave was used for the excimer laser 104. However, other lasers with similar characteristics are also possible.
The laser was generating, in one embodiment of the invention, 80 mJ pulses at 100 Hz, and the pulses had durations of approximately 14 ns. However, these numbers are exemplary and values of 60 to 100 mJ, 80 to 120 Hz, and 10 to 18 ns for the energy of the pulse, its frequency and time duration, respectively, are also possible. The UV irradiation of the optical fiber via the mask is performed between 10 to 700 seconds. The FBG are formed by interference between the first orders diffraction beams.
After the UV illumination, the fibers are heated (in an oven for example) for 0.5 hours to 10,000 hours. During the heating treatment, an index modulation amplitude becomes greater than 2×10−5. It was observed that the index modulation amplitude can be even greater than 10−4. Also, the method described above is independent of a specific material composition of the optical fiber and is different from conventional methods in which, similar to a photographic recording process, chemical reactions are involved. The thermal treatment process may use a temperature between 100° C. and 400° C.
In one embodiment of the invention, an aperture 106 was used to select the most homogeneous part of the excimer laser beam pattern 108, which was then expanded and imaged onto the fiber over a length (L) of 14 mm and a fluence per pulse of 400 mJ/cm2. Optionally, a mirror 110 and lenses (for example cylindrical lens 112) can be used to direct the laser beam 108. The reflectivity (R) of the grating was monitored in situ during the irradiation by launching a broadband light from a pumped Er-doped fiber Amplified Spontaneous Emission source (not shown) and measuring the reflected or transmitted light spectra with an Optical Spectrum Analyzer (ANDO AQ6317B) (not shown).
Following the irradiation with UV, the fiber gratings were placed in a temperature controlled oven and re-measured at regular intervals over 1000 hours. The fibers were removed from the oven and allowed to cool to room temperature for each measurement.
According to one embodiment,
a) and (b) are SEM (scanning electron microscopy) pictures at different magnifications of a mask according to one embodiment of the present invention.
The reflectivity of the gratings is directly related to the refractive index modulation amplitude (Δn) of the gratings through the equation R=tanh2(πΔnLη), where η is an overlap factor between the core mode and the cross section of the refractive index modulation. In addition, the transmission spectra shown in
Measurements of the UV-induced index change in the fiber are shown in
The formation of the refractive index modulation can be observed during illumination as shown in
Large refractive index modulations greater than 2×10−5 and in one embodiment, greater than 10−4, are obtained after exposure to the UV light of the order of tens to thousands of seconds and heating between 0.5 and 10,000 hours.
One concern in the conventional devices with photoinduced refractive index changes is the thermal stability of the changes. The induced changes in the fiber, according to one embodiment, were investigated by placing several samples in an oven maintained at 100° C. to monitor the development of the induced changes. In contrast to conventional gratings fabricated in silica fiber, the grating reflectivities increased instead of decaying, as shown by the growth in refractive index modulation plotted in
Then, a quick anneal at approximately 400° C. for about one minute was performed on the portion of the core having the gratings and it was observed a minimal thermal decay of the strongest grating as shown in
In another embodiment, similar results were obtained in fibers made from the same materials but using microstructured cladding for optical mode confinement and also in fibers with rare-earth dopants (Er and Yb) in the core to provide gain in the C-band. Thus, the fabrication of short, monolithic cavity phosphate glass fiber lasers with improved spectral purity and stability and lower fabrication costs can be achieved based on the above disclosed materials and methods.
For many applications such as fiber optic sensing, coherent optical communication, or as seed laser for laser ranging and LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) applications, high power (>10 mW and preferably greater than >25 mW), narrow linewidth (<10 kHz) single mode lasers that operate in the eyesafe spectral region of the telecommunication band around 1550 nm are in demand. These lasers include fiber, waveguide and microchip lasers.
Single-mode semiconductor diodes are limited to a maximum optical power of a few hundred mW by the occurrence of higher order transverse modes above leading above a certain level of injection currents. In contrast, multimode semiconductor laser diodes can generate several Watts of output power and can be combined to deliver hundreds of Watts of optical power through multimode fiber.
However, the deployment of fiber optic sensing require compact low-cost continuous single-mode lasers that can deliver greater than 50 mW of output power with a narrow linewidth. According with an embodiment of this invention, a novel optical device is provided that is capable of achieving this power as discussed next.
In one embodiment of the present invention, a distributed feedback Bragg fiber laser that is optically pumped by multimode diode lasers is discussed. The laser resonator is formed by a symmetric or asymmetric grating structure that provides distributed feedback for a signal light that is propagating in the single mode core of the active fiber. The grating structure is written directly into a doped single mode fiber by varying exposure to UV light, as discussed above with reference to
The core of the active fiber may be doped with various rare earth ions that absorb pump light at specific wavelengths and provide optical gain or signal amplification at other wavelength, specific for any particular rare earth ions. In one embodiment, the core of the phosphate glass is doped with erbium and ytterbium ions that provide absorption of pump light and optical gain. The spectral maximum of the optical gain is around the wavelength of 1535 nm and the distributed feedback grating structure has been designed to provide feedback for this wavelength, in one embodiment.
As shown in
In one embodiment, the DFB fiber laser cavity 200 may be formed in phosphate glass fiber with the method described in
In another embodiment, both the single mode fiber 208 and multimode fiber 206 are made of the similar or same phosphate glass and the two fibers are fusion spliced together.
In one embodiment, as shown in
Thus, according to the embodiments shown in
One advantage of the novel multimode pumping scheme is the availability of pump sources with much higher optical power at much lower cost compared to single mode laser diodes required for conventional core pumping of DFB fiber lasers. As shown in
This power level is already amongst the highest reported output powers for any DFB fiber laser indicating the stability of the novel laser. The continuous performance over a ten hour period at an output power level of 150 mW was analyzed. The variations in output power and emission wavelength were below 2% and 0.05 nm, respectively during this ten hour period.
The novel multimode pumping scheme discussed above can be optimized for low price, high power, low amplitude and phase noise, stability of operation, wavelength tunability, or any combination of the above. It has a simple and robust structure and in the applied forward pumping geometry it does not require wavelength multiplexing structures (e.g. for pump and signal wavelength as shown in
A single high power multimode pump light source can be utilized to pump a cascade of DFB resonators that can be imprinted into the active fiber and can be designed to emit at desired wavelengths.
To summarize, a method of modulating an index of refraction in an optical fiber, as shown in
The method may also include irradiating the first region of the core with ultraviolet light between 10 and 700 seconds and heating the first region of the core between 0.5 to 10.000 hours, after the irradiating is performed. The method also may include irradiating a wave having a wavelength between 190 and 196 nm onto the mask, using a silica phase mask having a period of 976.3 nm, irradiating pulses having between 60 and 100 mJ at 80 to 120 Hz, each pulse having a time period between 10 and 18 ns, and irradiating the pulses over a portion of the core that has a length between 10 and 18 mm and a fluence per pulse between 360 and 440 mJ/cm2. The method also may include heating the optical fiber at temperatures between 80 C and 400 C, forming a plurality of optical gratings within the core at predetermined distances, forming a fiber Bragg grating, doping the optical fiber with 1020 to 2×1021 Yb ions/cm3 and 1020 to 2×1021 Er ions/cm3, and combining P2O5 with at least one of BaO, Al2O3, and B2O3 to produce the optical fiber.
A method for generating a laser signal in a laser device including an optical fiber having a core that includes multicomponent phosphate glasses, the core having first and second portions surrounded by a cladding, and at least two fiber Bragg gratings in which an index modulation amplitude is greater than 2×10−5, the at least two fiber Bragg gratings disposed in the first portion of the core at a predefined distance from each other, is shown in
The method may also include outputting the generated laser signal into a second portion of the core, the third portion being spliceless with the first portion, and generating multiple laser signals by multiple pairs of fiber Bragg gratings formed in the first portion of the core.
Numerous modifications and variations of the present invention are possible in light of the above teachings. It is therefore to be understood that within the scope of the appended claims, the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described herein.
This invention claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/847,582, filed Sep. 27, 2006, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
This invention was made with government support under contract F49620-02-1-0380 awarded by USAF/AFOSR. The government has certain rights in the invention.
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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| 5367588 | Hill et al. | Nov 1994 | A |
| 5844927 | Kringlebotn | Dec 1998 | A |
| 6298184 | Putnam et al. | Oct 2001 | B1 |
| 6816514 | Jiang et al. | Nov 2004 | B2 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20080130692 A1 | Jun 2008 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60847582 | Sep 2006 | US |
