No Arabic abstract
A scanning white light interferometer is developed to measure the distributed polarization coupling (DPC) in high birefringence polarization maintaining fibers (PMFs). Traditionally, this technique requests only one polarization mode to be excited or both polarization modes to be excited with equal intensity in the PMF. Thus, an accurate alignment of the polarization direction with the principal axis in PMF is strictly required, which is not facilely realized in practical measurement. This paper develops a method to measure the spatial distribution of polarization mode coupling with random modes excited using a white light Michelson interferometer. The influence of incident polarization extinction ratio (PER) on polarization coupling detection is evaluated theoretically and experimentally. It is also analyzed and validated in corresponding measurement that the sensitivity of the polarization coupling detection system can be improved more than 100 times with the rotation of the analyzer.
Multimode optical fibers have seen increasing applications in communication, imaging, high-power lasers and amplifiers. However, inherent imperfections and environmental perturbations cause random polarization and mode mixing, making the output polarization states very different from the input one. This poses a serious issue for employing polarization sensitive techniques to control light-matter interactions or nonlinear optical processes at the distal end of a fiber probe. Here we demonstrate a complete control of polarization states for all output channels by only manipulating the spatial wavefront of a laser beam into the fiber. Arbitrary polarization states for individual output channels are generated by wavefront shaping without constraint on input polarizations. The strong coupling between spatial and polarization degrees of freedom in a multimode fiber enables full polarization control with spatial degrees of freedom alone, transforming a multimode fiber to a highly-efficient reconfigurable matrix of waveplates.
Previous studies of the modulation instability (MI) of continuous waves (CWs) in a two-core fiber (TCF) did not consider effects caused by co-propagation of the two polarized modes in a TCF that possesses birefringence, such as cross-phase modulation (XPM), polarization-mode dispersion (PMD), and polarization-dependent coupling (PDC) between the cores. This paper reports an analysis of these effects on the MI by considering a linear-birefringence TCF and a circular-birefringence TCF, which feature different XPM coefficients. The analysis focuses on the MI of the asymmetric CW states in the TCFs, which have no counterparts in single-core fibers. We find that, the asymmetric CW state exists when its total power exceeds a threshold (minimum) value, which is sensitive to the value of the XPM coefficient. We consider, in particular, a class of asymmetric CW states that admit analytical solutions. In the anomalous dispersion regime, without taking the PMD and PDC into account, the MI gain spectra of the birefringent TCF, if scaled by the threshold power, are almost identical to those of the zero-birefringence TCF. However, in the normal dispersion regime, the power-scaled MI gain spectra of the birefringent TCFs are distinctly different from their zero-birefringence counterparts, and the difference is particularly significant for the circular-birefringence TCF, which takes a larger XPM coefficient. On the other hand, the PMD and PDC only exert weak effects on the MI gain spectra. We also simulate the nonlinear evolution of the MI of the CW inputs in the TCFs and obtain a good agreement with the analytical solutions.
Hyperbolic materials offer a much wider freedom in designing optical properties of nanostructures than ones with isotropic and elliptical dispersion, both metallic or dielectric. Here, we present a detailed theoretical and numerical study of the unique optical properties of spherical nanoantennas composed of such materials. Hyperbolic nanospheres exhibit a rich modal structure that, depending on the polarization and direction of incident light, can exhibit either a full plasmonic-like response with multiple electric resonances, a single, dominant electric dipole or one with mixed magnetic and electric modes with an atypical reversed modal order. We derive resonance conditions for observing these resonances in the dipolar approximation and offer insight into how the modal response evolves with the size, material composition, and illumination. Specifically, the origin of the magnetic dipole mode lies in the hyperbolic dispersion and its existence is determined by two diagonal permittivity components of different sign. Our analysis shows that the origin of this unusual behavior stems from complex coupling between electric and magnetic multipoles, which leads to very strongly scattering or absorbing modes. These observations assert that hyperbolic nanoantennas offer a promising route towards novel light-matter interaction regimes.
We report on the experimental observation of induced solitons in a passively mode-locked fiber ring laser with birefringence cavity. Due to the cross coupling between the two orthogonal polarization components of the laser, it was found that if a soliton was formed along one cavity polarization axis, a weak soliton was also induced along the orthogonal polarization axis, and depending on the net cavity birefringence, the induced soliton could either have the same or different center wavelengths to that of the inducing soliton. Moreover, the induced soliton always had the same group velocity as that of the inducing soliton. They form a vector soliton in the cavity. Numerical simulations confirmed the experimental observations.
We investigate the coupling efficiency of parametric downconversion light (PDC) into single and multi-mode optical fibers as a function of the pump beam diameter, crystal length and walk-off. We outline two different theoretical models for the preparation and collection of either single-mode or multi-mode PDC light (defined by, for instance, multi-mode fibers or apertures, corresponding to bucket detection). Moreover, we define the mode-matching collection efficiency, important for realizing a single-photon source based on PDC output into a well-defined single spatial mode. We also define a multimode collection efficiency that is useful for single-photon detector calibration applications.