Design of wideband, high-resolution optical waveform samplers based on a dispersion-flattened highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber

Abstract

A novel scheme is proposed for ultrafast optical waveform samplers capable of operating over a wide wavelength range, which uses the four-wave mixing in a highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber (HNL-PCF) with low and very flat dispersion in the S, C and L bands. We report the first demonstration of the designed optical sampler by employing a 20 m dispersion-flattened HNL-PCF for observing the 160 Gbit s−1 optical data signal to achieve a temporal resolution of less than 0.8 ps for a wavelength separation up to 11 nm between data signal and sampling lights. This preliminary result is mainly restricted by the tunable optical bandpass filter used in our present experiment. The proposed scheme shows a potential for realizing wideband, high-resolution optical waveform sampling systems in a simple configuration and a cost-effective manner by using commercially available optical fibers of short length.

Optical waveform monitoring based on a free-running mode-locked femtosecond fibre laser and four-wave mixing in a highly nonlinear fibre

“…This, in turn, makes FWM−based optical sampling systems very suitable for practical applications. However, the reported work on fibre− −based optical waveform sampling has mainly focused on HNLF−based optical sampling gates [1,2,7], software−syn− chronization technique for all−optical sampling of ultrashort optical pulse waveforms [10,11,16], and the associated system performance [1,2,18]. From the viewpoint of engineering ap− plications, there is a need of systematic design for construct− ing the whole optical waveform sampling system.…”

开发超宽带光学取样示波器工程化样机

“…其显 著特点是无需温度控制即可在 10 • C 至 40 • C 温度范围内保持稳定的锁模运行, 并且易于工程化实现. 同时, 我们还在国际上首次提出了采用色散平坦高非线性光子晶体光纤实现可工作于宽波长范围、结 构简单的超快全光波形取样门的方案 [6] , 而且通过实验验证了基于该波形取样门的光学取样示波器系 统具有 0.64 ps 的时间分辨率. 在这两项新硬件设计方案的基础上, 通过改进计算机软件算法和增加新 的软件控制功能, 我们近期成功开发出超宽带光学取样示波器工程化样机 (如图 1 所示), 为将来的产 业化发展做准备.…”