Performance Study of a Zirconia-Doped Fiber for Distributed Temperature Sensing by OFDR at 800 °C.

Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry (OFDR) is used to make temperature distributed sensing measurements along a fiber by exploiting Rayleigh backscattering. This technique presents high spatial and high temperature resolutions on temperature ranges of several hundred of degrees Celsius. With standard telecommunications fibers, measurement errors coming from the correlation between a high temperature Rayleigh trace and the one taken as a reference at room temperature could be present at extremely high temperatures. These correlation errors, due to low backscattering signal amplitude and unstable backscattering signal, induce temperature measurement errors. Thus, for high temperature measurement ranges and at extremely high temperatures (e.g., at 800 °C), a known solution is to use fibers with femtosecond laser inscribed nanograting. These fs-laser-insolated fibers have a high amplitude and thermally stable scattering signal, and they exhibit lower correlation errors. In this article, temperature sensing at 800 °C is reported by using an annealed zirconia-doped optical fiber with an initial 40.5-dB enhanced scattering signal. The zirconia-doped fiber presents initially OFDR losses of 2.8 dB/m and low OFDR signal drift at 800 °C. The ZrO2-doped fiber is an alternative to nanograting-inscribed fiber to make OFDR distributed fiber sensing on several meters with gauge lengths of 1 cm at high temperatures.

F/Yb-codoped sol-gel silica glasses: toward tailoring the refractive index for the achievement of high-power fiber lasers.

Accurate control of both the doping distribution inside the fiber core and the low refractive index contrast between the fiber core and cladding materials is essential for the development of high-power fiber lasers based on the use of single-mode large-mode-area (LMA) optical fibers. Herein, sol-gel monolithic F/Yb3+-codoped silica glasses were prepared from porous large silica xerogels doped with ytterbium salt solution, which had been subjected to fluorination with hexafluoroethane gas, before subsequent sintering. The fluorine content inside the doped glass has been varied by adjusting the fluorination duration. The space homogeneity of fluorine and ytterbium concentrations in the cylindrical preforms has been checked by chemical analysis and Raman spectroscopy. Moreover, the glass with the lowest fluorine content has been successfully integrated as a core material in a microstructured optical fiber made using the stack-and-draw method. This fiber was tested in an all-fiber cavity laser architecture to evaluate potential lasing performances of the F/Yb3+-codoped silica glass. It presents a maximum efficiency of 70.4%, achieved at 1031 nm from a 1.16 m length fiber. These results confirm the potentialities of the obtained F/Yb3+-codoped glasses for the fabrication of LMA optical fiber lasers.

Extreme large mode area in single-mode pixelated Bragg fiber.

This paper reports the design and the fabrication of an all-solid photonic bandgap fiber with core diameter larger than 100 µm, a record effective mode area of about 3700 µm2 at 1035 nm and robust single-mode behavior on propagation length as short as 90 cm. These properties are obtained by using a pixelated Bragg fiber geometry together with an heterostructuration of the cladding and the appropriated generalized half wave stack condition applied to the first three higher order modes. We detail the numerical study that permitted to select the most efficient cladding geometry and present the experimental results that validate our approach.

12 THz flat gain fiber optical parametric amplifiers with dispersion varying fibers.

We report a fiber-optic parametric amplifier with ultra-broad and flat gain band by using a longitudinally tailored optical fiber. The parametric amplifier has been designed from realistic numerical simulations combined with an inverse algorithm to obtain a flat and wide gain band through fiber dispersion management. We experimentally report ~12 THz gain bandwidth on the Stokes side of the pump with a gain ripple as low as 7 dB and a mean gain up to ~60 dB. Experimental results show good agreement with numerical predictions for different pump powers and wavelength detuning.

Design and realization of flexible very large mode area pixelated Bragg fibers.

A new Pixelated Bragg Fiber design showing improved optical performances in terms of single-mode behavior and effective area is presented. The cladding is made of 3 rings of cylindrical high refractive index rods (pixels) in which some pixels are removed to act as a modal sieve for an improved rejection of Higher Order Modes (HOMs). Two half-wave-stack conditions are used to increase the confinement losses of the 3 first HOMs: LP11 and LP02-LP21 guided core modes. The realized fiber exhibits a core diameter of 48.5 µm with an effective single-mode behavior observed from 1000 nm to beyond 1700 nm even for a 1-m-long straight fiber. Losses prove to be low with a minimum value of 25 dB/km between 1200 and 1500 nm. Bending radius of 22.5 cm is reported for this structure without any significant extra-losses above a wavelength of 1350 nm.

Top-hat beam output with 100 µJ temporally shaped narrow-bandwidth nanosecond pulses from a linearly polarized all-fiber system.

We report on an all-fiber system delivering more than 100 µJ pulses with a top-hat beam output in the few nanoseconds regime at 10 kHz. The linearly polarized flattened beam is obtained thanks to a 3-mm-long single-mode microstructured fiber spliced to the amplifier's output.

Correlation between multiple modulation instability side lobes in dispersion oscillating fiber.

We investigate numerically and experimentally the spectral correlation between multiple modulation instability (MI) side lobes in a dispersion oscillating fiber. By leveraging the dispersive Fourier transformation, we acquire instantaneous spectra and investigate the energy correlation between individual MI sidebands through scattergrams. We found that conjugate MI side lobes are strongly correlated while other combinations experience a very low degree of correlation, revealing that parametric processes related to each side lobe pair act quasi-independently.

Top-hat beam output of a single-mode microstructured optical fiber: impact of core index depression.

A new strategy to obtain a single-mode fiber with a flattened intensity profile distribution is presented. It is based on the use of an OVD-made high index ring deposited on a silica rod having a refractive index slightly lower than the silica used for the microstructured cladding. Using this strategy, we realized the first single-mode fiber with a quasi-perfect top-hat intensity profile around 1 µm. Numerical studies clearly demonstrate the advantage of using a core index depression to insure the single-mode operation of the fiber at the working wavelength.

High-energy temporally shaped nanosecond-pulse master-oscillator power amplifier based on ytterbium-doped single-mode microstructured flexible fiber.

We present a versatile master-oscillator power amplifier system at 1053 nm in the few-nanoseconds regime meeting the high-level requirements of high-power laser facility front ends. Thanks to temporal shaping, more than 1.5 mJ pulse energy at 1 kHz with an excellent optical signal-to-noise ratio has been obtained in a single-mode 40 µm core flexible fiber.

All-fiber tunable optical delay line.

We present a tunable optical delay line based on the use of a single chirped fiber Bragg grating written into a standard single mode optical fiber. In the proposed scheme, the delay is induced through the Bragg grating differential group delay curve. This is achieved by launching orthogonally polarized optical pulses in both directions into the Bragg grating and by controlling its local birefringence. This bidirectional propagation allows to compensate the second-order dispersion. The setup is suitable to delay pulses with a spectral width just less than the grating reflection bandwidth, which is particularly useful in the context of forthcoming wavelength division multiplexing ultra-high bit rate lightwave systems. In this work, the performances of the setup are investigated using a pulsed laser delivering 6.3 ps Fourier transform limited pulses at 1548 nm. A maximum delay of 120 ps (about 20 times the pulse width) is reported experimentally.

Microbending behavior of large-effective-area Bragg fibers.

We use a phase-sensitive optical low-coherence interferometry technique and camera imaging to identify microbend-induced mode couplings in Bragg fibers. Results show the importance of the quality of fabrication of Bragg fibers on their modal content when they are subject to microbends. Design strategies to improve the microbending robustness are identified.

Discrete focusing in an optical fiber with a two-dimensional square array of coupled waveguides.

We report the experimental demonstration of "discrete focusing" inside a 60-cm-long optical fiber made of a 2D square array of coupled waveguides. The suitable input amplitude and phase distributions are imposed by using a spatial light modulator. Thus we demonstrate that focusing in a single core at the output by discrete propagation is possible despite some amount of transverse heterogeneities of the waveguide array.

Efficient fiber Bragg gratings in 2D all-solid photonic bandgap fiber.

Fiber Bragg Gratings with reflectivity up to 25 dB have been photo-written in the core of a 2D all-solid Photonic Bandgap Fiber without modification of the guiding properties of the fiber. This result is obtained by combining an appropriate glass composition for the high index inclusions constituting the micro-structured cladding and a photosensitive low index core. Couplings of the fundamental core guided mode with cladding modes are investigated and compared to theoretical predictions.

Coexistence of total internal reflexion and bandgap modes in solid core photonic bandgap fibre with intersticial air holes.

In this article, we deal with new properties of a Solid Core Photonic Bandgap (SC-PBGF) fiber with intersticial air holes (IAHs) in its transverse structure. It has been shown recently, that IAH enlarges its bandgaps (BG), compared to what is observed in a regular SC-PBGF. We shall describe the mechanisms that account for this BG opening, which has not been explained in detail yet. It is then interesting to discuss the role of air holes in the modification of the Bloch modes, at the boundaries of the BG. In particular, we will use a simple method to compute the exact BG diagrams in a faster way, than what is done usually, drawing some parallels between structured fibers and physics of photonic crystals. The very peculiar influence of IAHs on the upper/lower boundaries of the bandgaps will be explained thanks to the difference between mode profiles excited on both boundaries, and linked to the symmetry / asymmetry of the modes. We will observe a modification of the highest index band (n(FSM)) due to IAHs, that will enable us to propose a fiber design to guide by Total Internal Reflection (TIR) effect, as well as by a more common BG confinement. The transmission zone is deeply enlarged, compared to regular photonic bandgap fibers, and consists in the juxtaposition of (almost non overlapping) BG guiding zones and TIR zone.

Local characterization of fiber-Bragg gratings through combined use of low-coherence interferometry and a layer-peeling algorithm.

The technique presented here allows us to obtain an accurate determination of the refractive index modulation amplitude, the mean effective index, and the chirp of fiber-Bragg gratings. A layer-peeling algorithm is used to extract this information from low-coherence interferometry measurements. Finally, we present a systematic study over 10 uniform and chirped gratings to proof the reliability and accuracy of this technique.

Suppression of discrete cladding mode resonances in fibre slanted Bragg gratings for gain equalisation.

In a slanted Bragg grating, coupling between the fundamental guided mode and the counterpropagative cladding modes result in discrete resonances in the transmission spectrum. These resonances are a drawback when Slanted Bragg Gratings are used for gain flattening of fibres amplifiers. A new method based on a chemical etching of the cladding is proposed leading to an overlap of the resonances and a reduction of the amplitude of the modulation. This method can be applied for any value of photo induced modulation amplitude in the SBG.

Phase-sensitive optical low-coherence reflectometry technique applied to the characterization of photonic crystal fiber properties.

Localized measurements of group-velocity dispersion and birefringence of photonic crystal fibers are achieved with a phase-sensitive optical low-coherence reflectometry technique. This technique is efficient for fiber samples no longer than 1 m. Theoretical simulations are in good agreement with experimental results. As a result, the stress-induced birefringence proves to be at most 1 order of magnitude below the geometrical-shape birefringence.

Isochronal annealing of Bragg gratings written in H2-loaded or in UV-hypersensitized germano-phosphosilicate planar waveguides: a comparison.

Bragg Gratings (BGs) have been written within either H2-loaded or UV-hypersensitized phosphorous-germanium co-doped silica planar waveguides through exposure to light at 248 nm. The stability of these BGs has been investigated by means of isochronal annealing experiments. It appears that the stability of both the modulation and the Bragg wavelength is higher in the hydrogenated waveguides than in the hypersensitized counterparts. Moreover, in the case of BGs in the UV-hypersensitized waveguides, the rate of the strength decay depends on the initial amplitude of the refractive index modulation whereas no significant difference could be observed in H2-loaded waveguides. It is shown that the master-curve formalism can be used to predicting an isothermal decay of both reflectivity and Bragg wavelengths of BGs written in the H2-loaded waveguides. This conclusion is illustrated by the fairly nice agreement that exits between the results of an isothermal annealing experiment and those predicted by use of the master-curve.

Photonic crystal fiber design by means of a genetic algorithm.

A Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used to design photonic crystal fiber structures with user-defined chromatic dispersion properties. This GA is combined with a full vectorial finite element method in order to determine the effective index of propagation of the modes and then, the chromatic dispersion of structures generated by GA. This method proves to be a powerful tool for solving this inverse problem.

Thermal stability of the 248-nm-induced presensitization process in standard H2-loaded germanosilicate fibers.

Grating growths through exposure of presensitized standard fibers to KrF light were recorded in various experimental condition. It is shown that there exists an optimum sensitization fluence at which the efficiency of the sensitization process is higher. Isochronal thermal annealing of pre-exposed fibers led to a decrease in the sensitization-induced enhancement of photosensitivity. IR-absorption spectroscopy was carried out in fibers or preform plates to monitor the attenuation ascribed to H-bearing species in the same samples. The annealing-induced decay in photosensitivity cannot be correlated with those of the H-bearing species in the whole temperature range (110 degrees C-800 degrees C). This indicates that the enhancement of photosensitivity comes from the transformation of more than one species.