Mode-Locking in a Semiconductor Fiber Laser Using Cross-Absorption Modulation in an Electroabsorption Modulator and Application to All-Optical Clock Recovery

Author

Chen, Lawrence R. ; Cartledge, John C.

Author_Institution

McGill Univ., Montreal

Volume

26

Issue

7

fYear

2008

fDate

4/1/2008 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

799

Lastpage

806

Abstract

We demonstrate the use of cross-absorption modulation in an electroabsorption modulator to actively mode-lock a semiconductor fiber laser at 10 GHz. The laser cavity also comprises a linearly chirped fiber Bragg grating to obtain wavelength tunable operation based on the dispersion tuning approach. The laser exhibits uniform output pulse characteristics throughout the tuning range. We also investigate the impact of using different types of optical pump signals on the output pulses. Finally, we demonstrate the application of the mode-locked laser for all-optical clock recovery.

Keywords

fibre lasers; laser cavity resonators; semiconductor lasers; synchronisation; all optical clock recovery; cross absorption modulation; electroabsorption modulator; fiber Bragg grating; frequency 10 GHz; laser cavity; mode locking; semiconductor fiber laser; Chirp modulation; Clocks; Fiber lasers; Laser mode locking; Laser tuning; Optical pulses; Optical tuning; Pump lasers; Semiconductor lasers; Tunable circuits and devices; All-optical clock recovery; cross-absorption modulation (XAM); electroabsorption modulators (EAMs); fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs); fiber lasers; mode-locked lasers; optical pulse generation; semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JLT.2007.915208

Filename

4484123