Retiming dynamics of harmonically mode-locked laser solitons in a self-driven optomechanical lattice

Xiaocong Wang; Benhai Wang; Wenbin He; Xintong Zhang; Qi Huang; Zhiyuan Huang; Xin Jiang; Meng Pang; Philip. St. J. Russell

doi:10.1038/s41377-024-01736-3

Go to Nature Website

Your Location：

Home >

Browse articles >

Retiming dynamics of harmonically mode-locked laser solitons in a self-driven optomechanical lattice

Original Articles

- Retiming dynamics of harmonically mode-locked laser solitons in a self-driven optomechanical lattice
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 14, Issue 3, Pages: 703-712(2025)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Department of Optics and Optical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
  2.Russell Centre for Advanced Lightwave Science, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics and Hangzhou Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China
  3.State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics and CAS Center for Excellence in Ultra-intense Laser Science, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics CAS, Shanghai 201800, China
  4.Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou 310024, China
- Author bio：
  
  Wenbin He (wenbin.he@r-cals.com)
  Meng Pang (pangmeng@siom.ac.cn)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-024-01736-3
  CLC：
- Received：02 July 2024，
  
  Revised：02 December 2024，
  
  Accepted：2024-12-24，
  
  Published Online：02 February 2025，
  
  Published：31 March 2025
- Accepted：
Scan QR Code
Wang, X. C. et al. Retiming dynamics of harmonically mode-locked laser solitons in a self-driven optomechanical lattice. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 703-712 (2025).
DOI：

Wang, X. C. et al. Retiming dynamics of harmonically mode-locked laser solitons in a self-driven optomechanical lattice. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 703-712 (2025). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-024-01736-3.

摘要

Abstract

Harmonic mode-locking

realized actively or passively

is an effective technique for increasing the repetition rate of ultrafast lasers. It is critically important to understand how a harmonically mode-locked pulse train responds to external perturbations and noise

so as to make sure that it is stable and resistant to noise. Here

in a series of carefully designed experiments

we elucidate the retiming dynamics of laser pulses generated in a soliton fiber laser harmonically mode-locked at GHz frequencies to the acoustic resonance in a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) core. We characterize the self-driven optomechanical lattice

which is distributed along the PCF and provides the structure that supports harmonic mode-locking

using a homodyne setup. We reveal that

after an abrupt perturbation

each soliton in the lattice undergoes damped oscillatory retiming within its trapping potential

while the retiming is strongly coupled to soliton dissipation. In addition

we show

through statistical analysis of the intra-cavity pulse spacing

how the trapping potentials are effective for suppressing timing jitter. The measurements and the theory developed in this work lay the groundwork for studies of the general stability and noise performance of harmonically mode-locked lasers as well as providing valuable insight into generic multi-pulse phenomena in mode-locked lasers.

关键词

Keywords

references

Haus, H. A. Mode-locking of lasers. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron. 6 , 1173–1185 (2000)..

Dudovich, N., Oron, D. & Silberberg, Y. Single-pulse coherently controlled nonlinear Raman spectroscopy and microscopy. Nature 418 , 512–514 (2002)..

Jones, D. J. et al. Carrier-envelope phase control of femtosecond mode-locked lasers and direct optical frequency synthesis. Science 288 , 635–639 (2000)..

Yao, B. C. et al. Interdisciplinary advances in microcombs: bridging physics and information technology. eLight 4 , 19 (2024)..

Yang, Q. F. et al. Efficient microresonator frequency combs. eLight 4 , 18 (2024)..

Penilla, E. H. et al. Ultrafast laser welding of ceramics. Science 365 , 803–808 (2019)..

Keiber, S. et al. Electro-optic sampling of near-infrared waveforms. Nat. Photonics 10 , 159–162 (2016)..

Xu, C. & Wise, F. W. Recent advances in fibre lasers for nonlinear microscopy. Nat. Photonics 7 , 875–882 (2013)..

Cotter, D. et al. Nonlinear optics for high-speed digital information processing. Science 286 , 1523–1528 (1999)..

Haus, H. A. & Wong, W. S. Solitons in optical communications. Rev. Mod. Phys. 68 , 423–444 (1996)..

Grudinin, A. B. & Gray, S. Passive harmonic mode locking in soliton fiber lasers. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 14 , 144–154 (1997)..

Grein, M. E. et al. Quantum-limited timing jitter in actively modelocked lasers. IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 40 , 1458–1470 (2004)..

Kerse, C. et al. Ablation-cooled material removal with ultrafast bursts of pulses. Nature 537 , 84–88 (2016)..

Cundiff, S. T. & Weiner, A. M. Optical arbitrary waveform generation. Nat. Photonics 4 , 760–766 (2010)..

Torres-Company, V. & Weiner, A. M. Optical frequency comb technology for ultra-broadband radio-frequency photonics. Laser Photonics Rev. 8 , 368–393 (2014)..

Grein, M. E. et al. Observation of quantum-limited timing jitter in an active, harmonically mode-locked fiber laser. Opt. Lett. 27 , 957–959 (2002)..

Jones, D. J., Haus, H. A. & Ippen, E. P. Subpicosecond solitons in an actively mode-locked fiber laser. Opt. Lett. 21 , 1818–1820 (1996)..

Davey, R. P., Langford, N. & Ferguson, A. I. Interacting solitons in erbium fibre l aser. Electron. Lett. 27 , 1257–1259 (1991)..

Weill, R. et al. Noise-mediated casimir-like pulse interaction mechanism in lasers. Optica 3 , 189–192 (2016)..

Jang, J. K. et al. Ultraweak long-range interactions of solitons observed over astronomical distances. Nat. Photonics 7 , 657–663 (2013)..

Pilipetskii, A. N., Golovchenko, E. A. & Menyuk, C. R. Acoustic effect in passively mode-locked fiber ring lasers. Opt. Lett. 20 , 907–909 (1995)..

Kang, M. S., Joly, N. Y. & Russell, P. S. J. Passive mode-locking of fiber ring laser at the 337th harmonic using gigahertz acoustic core resonances. Opt. Lett. 38 , 561–563 (2013)..

Pang, M. et al. Stable subpicosecond soliton fiber laser passively mode-locked by gigahertz acoustic resonance in photonic crystal fiber core. Optica 2 , 339–342 (2015)..

Zhang, L. et al. 'Plug-and-play' plasmonic metafibers for ultrafast fibre lasers. Light. Adv. Manuf. 3 , 653–664 (2022)..

Kang, M. S. et al. Tightly trapped acoustic phonons in photonic crystal fibres as highly nonlinear artificial Raman oscillators. Nat. Phys. 5 , 276–280 (2009)..

Pang, M. et al. All-optical bit storage in a fibre laser by optomechanically bound states of solitons. Nat. Photonics 10 , 454–458 (2016)..

He, W. et al. Formation of optical supramolecular structures in a fibre laser by tailoring long-range soliton interactions. Nat. Commun. 10 , 5756 (2019)..

He, W. B. et al. Synthesis and dissociation of soliton molecules in parallel optical-soliton reactors. Light Sci. Appl. 10 , 120 (2021)..

Hofer, M. et al. Mode locking with cross-phase and self-phase modulation. Opt. Lett. 16 , 502–504 (1991)..

Ippen, E. P., Liu, L. Y. & Haus, H. A. Self-starting condition for additive-pulse mode-locked lasers. Opt. Lett. 15 , 183–185 (1990)..

Chen, C. J., Wai, P. K. A. & Menyuk, C. R. Soliton fiber ring laser. Opt. Lett. 17 , 417–419 (1992)..

Siegman, A. & Kuizenga, D. Modulator frequency detuning effects in the FM mode-locked laser. IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 6 , 803–808 (1970)..

Gordon, J. P. & Haus, H. A. Random-walk of coherently amplified solitons in optical fiber transmission. Opt. Lett. 11 , 665–667 (1986)..

Grein, M. E. et al. Timing restoration dynamics in an actively mode-locked fiber ring laser. Opt. Lett. 24 , 1687–1689 (1999)..

Wang, B. H. et al. Intrinsic discrepancy of multi-soliton interferogram in dispersive Fourier transform measurements due to impulsive response of fast electronics. J. Lightwave Technol. 42 , 5698–5703 (2024)..

Herink, G. et al. Real-time spectral interferometry probes the internal dynamics of femtosecond soliton molecules. Science 356 , 50–54 (2017)..

Goda, K. & Jalali, B. Dispersive Fourier transformation for fast continuous single-shot measurements. Nat. Photonics 7 , 102–112 (2013)..

He, W. B., Pang, M. & Russell, P. S. J. Wideband-tunable soliton fiber laser mode-locked at 1.88 GHz by optoacoustic interactions in solid-core PCF. Opt. Express 23 , 24945–24954 (2015)..

Wang, X. Y. et al. Experimental study on buildup dynamics of a harmonic mode-locking soliton fiberlaser. Opt. Express 27 , 28808–28815 (2019)..

Lourdesamy, J. P. et al. Spectrally periodic pulses for enhancement of optical nonlinear effects. Nat. Phys. 18 , 59–66 (2022)..

Meng, F. C. et al. Intracavity incoherent supercontinuum dynamics and rogue waves in a broadband dissipative soliton laser. Nat. Commun. 12 , 5567 (2021)..

Ribenek, V. A. et al. Double harmonic mode-locking in soliton fiber ring laser acquired through the resonant optoacoustic coupling. APL Photonics 9 , 056105 (2024)..

Views

Downloads

CSCD

Alert me when the article has been cited

Submit

Tools

Publicity Resources

No data

Related Author

No data

Related Institution

No data

⁰