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Ultrafast Optics: Vector Cavity Lasers - Physics and Technology

  • Magazine Article
  • 19AERP09_10
Published September 01, 2019 by SAE International in United States
Language:
  • English

Investigating the operation of fiber lasers where the vector nature of light propagation in the laser cavity is considered.

Air Force Research Laboratory, Arlington, Virginia

Fiber lasers have found widespread applications in industrial material processing, scientific research and military systems due to their advantages of easy maintenance, excellent stability, compact size and low cost. One characteristic of fiber lasers, compared to other types of lasers, is that strong light is confined to propagating a long distance in a fiber core that has a very small cross-sectional area. This has the consequence that the nonlinear light interaction with the matter has a very long length. This results in the strength of all nonlinear optical processes being strongly amplified. This means that a conventionally weak, nonlinear optical effect can become significant. Therefore, apart from the practical applications, fiber lasers also constitute an ideal platform for the exploration of various complex nonlinear dynamics.

Previous studies on the operation of fiber lasers have revealed many interesting nonlinear optical phenomena. Studying these nonlinear optical effects has not only led to a better understanding of the operation of fiber lasers, but also has driven the performance of the fiber lasers to the extreme through exploiting features of the nonlinear optical effects for better laser operation. However, previous studies of fiber lasers have mainly focused on the simple scalar cavity lasers, which ignore the vector nature of light propagation in fibers. For many practical cases, e.g. a fiber laser with a polarization sensitive component in the cavity, this is justified as the existence of the polarization sensitive component fixes the polarization of light in the laser cavity. However, for the comprehensive understanding of the features of fiber lasers, the vector nature of light propagation in the cavity fibers has to be considered. Theoretical studies have shown that the vector light propagation in single mode fibers involves the nonlinear coupling between the two orthogonal polarization components of light, which could introduce a number of new nonlinear dynamics, such as various types of vector soliton formation, polarization domains and domain walls, and black-white vector solitons. The aim of this research project is to investigate the operation of fiber lasers with a quasi-vector cavity both numerically and experimentally. It is expected that through this study, a deep and comprehensive understanding of the operation of fiber lasers could be gained, and fiber lasers with novel features could be further developed.