In-amplifier and cascaded mid-infrared supercontinuum sources with low noise through gain-induced soliton spectral alignment

The pulse-to-pulse relative intensity noise (RIN) of near-infrared (near-IR) in-amplifier supercontinuum (SC) sources and mid-IR cascaded SC sources was experimentally and numerically investigated and shown to have significantly lowered noise due to the fundamental effect of gain-induced soliton-spe...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:Scientific reports 2020-05, Vol.10 (1), p.8230-8230, Article 8230
Hauptverfasser: Kwarkye, Kyei, Jensen, Mikkel, Engelsholm, Rasmus D., Dasa, Manoj K., Jain, Deepak, Bowen, Patrick, Moselund, Peter M., Petersen, Christian R., Bang, Ole
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:Volltext
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:The pulse-to-pulse relative intensity noise (RIN) of near-infrared (near-IR) in-amplifier supercontinuum (SC) sources and mid-IR cascaded SC sources was experimentally and numerically investigated and shown to have significantly lowered noise due to the fundamental effect of gain-induced soliton-spectral alignment. The mid-IR SC source is based on a near-IR in-amplifier SC pumping a cascade of thulium-doped and ZBLAN fibers. We demonstrate that the active thulium-doped fiber not only extend the spectrum, but also to significantly reduce the RIN by up to 22% in the long wavelength region above 2 μm. Using numerical simulations, we demonstrate that the noise reduction is the result of an interplay between absorption-emission processes and nonlinear soliton dynamics leading to the soliton-spectral alignment. In the same way we show that the RIN of the near-IR in-amplifier SC source is already significantly reduced because the spectral broadening takes place in an active fiber that also introduces soliton-spectral alignment. We further show that the low noise properties are transferred to the subsequent fluoride SC, which has a RIN lower than 10% (5%) in a broad region from 1.1–3.6  μ m (1.4–3.0 μm). The demonstrated low noise significantly improves the applicability of these broadband sources for mid-IR imaging and spectroscopy.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-020-65150-6