High refractive index without absorption in a rare-earth-ion-doped optical fiber

Zhiping Wang, Benli Yu, Shenglai Zhen +3 more

Shun‐Cai Zhao, Hongwei Guo, Xiaojing Wei

Zach J. Simmons

E. Aguilar, S. Srepanov, E. Hernandez

Resonance properties of the all-fiber ring cavity filled with nonlinear material - saturable rare-earth-doped fiber are analyzed and experimentally investigated. Unlike the earlier investigated erbium-doped fiber at 1550nm where the optical absorption photo-induced change (saturation) is observed only, the ytterbium-doped fiber at 1064nm demonstrates the saturation of the refractive index mainly. For this configuration we report experimental observation of the optical bistability and hysteresis in the transmitted output light at the 10mW-scale incident light power. The experimental results are in qualitative agreement with the theoretical analysis that takes into account the saturation of both parameters: the optical absorption and the refractive index of the doped fiber. The reported results seem promising for applications in high-sensitivity interferometric configurations at 1064nm operation wavelength.

Yan Xue, P. L. Chu, Weiping Zhang

We present a theory that enables us to account for the pump-induced change of refractive index in a rare-earth-doped fiber. Experimental results carried out on an erbium-doped fiber with cw pump and cw signal operation confirm the accuracy of this theory at the steady state. Both theoretical and experimental results show that significant index changes can be obtained for the order of 1–2 mW of cw optical pump or signal power. In addition we studied the transient dynamics of the resonance-enhanced refractive index in a wide range of pulse widths from millisecond to tens of femtoseconds. The result shows that a fast response of refractive-index changes is achievable since the effects of spontaneous emission and nonradiative decay are negligible in the short-pulse case.

Tao Shui, Zhao Zhang, Chenchen Yin +2 more