Improvements to long duration low power gain switching diode laser pulses using a highly nonlinear optical loop mirror: theory and experiment Articles uri icon

publication date

  • March 2011

start page

  • 700

end page

  • 707

issue

  • 5

volume

  • 29

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0733-8724

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1558-2213

abstract

  • This work presents an experimental and theoretical study on the improvements to pulsed diode laser gain-switched (GS) optical sources. Simultaneous compression and reshaping of the limited quality pulses obtained with this technique are reported using a highly nonlinear optical loop mirror (HNOLM) directly coupled to the diode laser source, without any previous pulse conditioning. The HNOLM is based on the use of a microstructured optical fiber and a highly nonlinear semiconductor optical amplifier; it is compact and offers benefits in terms of reduced system complexity. The experimental observations are compared to a theoretical model of the system, and excellent agreement is observed.

keywords

  • diode laser; gain switching (gs); nonlinear optical devices; nonlinear optical loop mirror (nolm); picoseconds phenomena; pulse compression and pulse shaping