Search

Hybrid integration of a semiconductor amplifier with a feedback circuit containing ring resonators has been widely demonstrated in the infrared. Such lasers provide ultra-narrowband and single-mode oscillation, which can be tuned over a large spectral range, and easily integrated in a photonic circuit. Contrary to this, applications in the visible spectral range, such as precision metrology with optical clocks, rely on bulk optics lasers, which are susceptible to acoustic noise as they cannot be integrated on a chip. To realize hybrid integrated lasers in the visible range, where scattering losses are typically higher than in the infrared, it is required to design a feedback circuit based on low-loss waveguides. Here, we present the first design and realization of a hybrid integrated diode laser in the visible, by integrating an AlGaInP based amplifier with a Si3N4 based feedback circuit. Our experimental results show that the laser can be tuned over a 11 nm wide interval around the central wavelength of 685 nm and that it delivers a single wavelength output power of up to 4.8 mW. This result is of great importance for the development of on-chip narrowband and tuneable light sources in the visible range.

A light source based on a single femtosecond laser oscillator and using soliton self-frequency shift in a nonlinear fiber followed by amplification in ytterbium-doped fiber is presented. CARS microscopy is successfully demonstrated.

A practical efficient optical parametric chirped pulse amplification is demonstrated with periodically poled KTiOPO4. It provides a compact solution to amplify stretched pulses to the 100 µJ level (signal + idler) at 1 kHz. The amplified signal pulses near 1.57 µm are recompressed to 270 fs.

Parametric light generation has been utilized very successfully in the past as a means of generating wavelength-tunable light pulses in a variety of systems. Especially fiber optical parametric oscillators (FOPO) based on four-wave mixing in a photonic crystal fiber [1, 2] have the potential to benefit from the inherent mechanical stability and robustness of a fiber-based setup. However, the presented concepts inherently prevent an all-fiber integrated setup by relying on a mechanical tuning of the resonator length or pump wavelength. In addition, such a tuning mechanism limits the achievable tuning speed, thereby, reducing the flexibility of the light source as well as being prone to mechanical abrasion and errors.

Low-power, ultrafast, all-optical switches have been developed by tuning the phase difference between transverse modes of a probe beam via intermodal cross-phase modulation (XPM) with a second beam as the control beam [1]. Switching energies in the nanojoule-regime were achieved in few-mode fibers [2].

We reveal that in dispersive nonlinear ring resonators pulse delay in combination with anomalous dispersion are basic prerequisites for the occurrence of limit cycle oscillations. These oscillations accomplish tunable sidebands within the generated frequency comb.