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Europhysics Letters (EPL)

Experimental evidence of coherent population oscillations based on spectral hole-burning in erbium-doped silica fibre

Sebastián Jarabo

Published Oct 1, 2015• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

\n\nSpectral hole-burning in an erbium-doped silica fibre at room temperature has been experimentally demonstrated. This demonstration can be considered as a clear experimental evidence of the relationship between slow light and coherent population oscillations in erbium-doped fibres. In a 3.5 m erbium-doped silica fibre, spectral holes with a depth up to $1.5\\ \\text{m}^{-1}$ were obtained by coupling a strong and narrow saturating power and measuring changes in the spectral absorption coefficient for a weak and wide probe power. A tuneable ring-cavity erbium-doped fibre laser was employed as saturating source. To obtain a higher saturating power, laser emission was amplified by means of a second fibre amplifier.\n

DOI
10.1209/0295-5075/112/14004

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\n\nSpectral hole-burning in an erbium-doped silica fibre at room temperature has been experimentally demonstrated. This demonstration can be considered as a clear experimental evidence of the relationship between slow light and coherent population oscillations in erbium-doped fibres. In a 3.5 m erbium-doped silica fibre, spectral holes with a depth up to 1.5textm−11.5\\ \\text{m}^{-1}1.5textm−1 were obtained by coupling a strong and narrow saturating power and measuring changes in the spectral absorption coefficient for a weak and wide probe power. A tuneable ring-cavity erbium-doped fibre laser was employed as saturating source. To obtain a higher saturating power, laser emission was amplified by means of a second fibre amplifier.\n
Quantitative analysis of slow light experiments utilising coherent population oscillation (CPO) in a range of saturably absorbing media, including ruby and alexandrite, Er 3+ :Y 2 SiO 5 , bacteriorhodopsin, semiconductor quantum devices and erbium-doped optical fibres, shows that the observations may be more simply interpreted as saturable absorption phenomena. A basic two-level model of a saturable absorber displays all the effects normally associated with slow light, namely phase shift and modulation gain of the transmitted signal, hole burning in the modulation frequency spectrum and power broadening of the spectral hole, each arising from the finite response time of the non-linear absorption. Only where hole-burning in the optical spectrum is observed (using independent pump and probe beams), or pulse delays exceeding the limits set by saturable absorption are obtained, can reasonable confidence be placed in the observation of slow light in such experiments. Superluminal (“fast light”) phenomena in media with reverse saturable absorption (RSA) may be similarly explained.
Quantitative analysis of slow light experiments utilising coherent population oscillation (CPO) in a range of saturably absorbing media, including ruby and alexandrite, Er3+:Y2SiO5, bacteriorhodopsin, semi-conductor quantum devices and erbium doped optical fibres, shows that the observations may be more simply interpreted as saturable absorption phenomena. A basic two-level model of a saturable absorber displays all the effects normally associated with slow light, namely phase shift and modulation gain of the transmitted signal, hole burning in the modulation frequency spectrum and power broadening of the spectral hole, arising from the finite response time of the non-linear absorption. Only where hole-burning in the optical spectrum is observed (using independent pump and probe beams), or pulse delays exceeding the limits set by saturable absorption are obtained, can reasonable confidence be placed in the observation of slow light in such experiments. Superluminal ('fast light') phenomena in media with reverse saturable absorption (RSA) may be similarly explained.
The homogeneous linewidth of the transition I15/24−I13/24 in highly doped erbium fibers and its dependence with temperature in the range from 10 to 50 K are experimentally characterized using spectral hole burning. The homogeneous linewidth dependence with temperature is quadratic above 20 K where homogeneous broadening is dominated by two-phonon Raman processes, and linear at lower temperatures where direct phonon processes occur. This characteristic power-law dependence was also derived from transmittance measurements. The solution of nonlinear field equations using the results obtained from our experiments predicts that Gaussian probe pulses propagate at subluminal speed through the narrow spectral holes burned in erbium-doped fibers. For gigahertz pulses in the telecommunication window, a fractional delay as high as 0.6 is predicted.