February 2013
Spotlight Summary by Jesper Lægsgaard
Resonantly enhanced third harmonic generation in microfiber loop resonators
Over the last two decades, fiber-based laser sources have seen enormous progress, and have established themselves as cheap, compact, robust and easy-to-use alternatives to traditional gas or solid-state lasers. However, the rare-earth dopants used as laser ions in the fibers offer lasing action in limited bandwidth ranges only, e.g. around 1000-1200 nm for Yb, and 1500-1600 nm for Er. Fiber-based schemes for wavelength conversion are therefore high in demand, in order to extend the wavelength range of fiber lasers without losing the advantages of an all-fiber format. In particular, generation of visible and ultraviolet radiation, needed for many applications in imaging and materials processing, is challenging. The paper by Lee and co-workers suggests a new route to efficient third-harmonic generation (THG) at low pump powers by using resonant silica microfiber loops.
Silica microfibers are ordinary optical fibers which have been tapered down to micron or even sub-micron outer diameters over a length of a few millimeters or centimeters. Incoupling and outcoupling into these devices is straightforward, as the fiber is of standard diameter in both ends. In the tapered section, the fundamental guided mode adiabatically evolves into the fundamental mode of a micron-sized silica strand in air, implying an enhancement of the nonlinear coefficient with up to two orders of magnitude. However, parametric processes like the THG enabled by the third-order nonlinearity of amorphous silica, are not only limited by intensity, but also by phase-matching requirements. When three pump photons are converted into one signal photon, both momentum and energy must be conserved, which translates into a requirement that the effective index of propagation for the guided mode should be the same at the pump and signal wavelengths. The monotonous increase of the silica refractive index with frequency usually precludes such phase-matching between fundamental modes in a given fiber. However, in microfibers phase-matching to higher-order modes at the signal wavelength is straightforwardly achieved. Earlier theoretical results suggest that a 50% conversion efficiency can be achieved in a 1 cm-piece of microfiber, and more than 90% can be obtained over 5 cm, using a pump power of 1 kW. These calculations, however, assume an ideal microfiber with a uniform diameter. Since the phase-matching is critically dependent on the fiber diameter being just right, inevitable diameter fluctuations has made it impossible to achieve such conversion rates in fabricated microfibers.
One solution could be to increase the pump power, since microfiber damage typically does not set in before reaching the 10 kW level. This will allow using shorter fiber lengths, alleviating the problem of diameter fluctuations. Instead of just increasing the output of the pump laser, Lee and co-workers suggest a more clever approach. By twisting the microfiber into a loop, whose in- and outgoing fiber ends are in close proximity, a resonant cavity for the pump light can be formed within the loop. In this way, the pump intensity in the loop cavity can be enhanced by almost an order of magnitude. Conversion efficiencies on the percent level are then obtained already at a pump power level of 100 W in a loop having a length of only 3 mm. At 600 W, the conversion efficiency is more than 50%. The reduced length of the microfiber means that longitudinal homogeneity is more likely to be maintained. The authors also show that it may be possible to further enhance the THG efficiency by making the loop resonant for light at the signal frequency as well as at the pump frequency.
While the present paper is purely numerical, microfiber loop resonators are well established in the laboratory, and the work therefore points out a direction of research which can immediately be taken up by experimenters. It will indeed be interesting to see if present-day state-of-the-art microfibers will allow efficient THG by utilizing the loop resonator concept.
You must log in to add comments.
Silica microfibers are ordinary optical fibers which have been tapered down to micron or even sub-micron outer diameters over a length of a few millimeters or centimeters. Incoupling and outcoupling into these devices is straightforward, as the fiber is of standard diameter in both ends. In the tapered section, the fundamental guided mode adiabatically evolves into the fundamental mode of a micron-sized silica strand in air, implying an enhancement of the nonlinear coefficient with up to two orders of magnitude. However, parametric processes like the THG enabled by the third-order nonlinearity of amorphous silica, are not only limited by intensity, but also by phase-matching requirements. When three pump photons are converted into one signal photon, both momentum and energy must be conserved, which translates into a requirement that the effective index of propagation for the guided mode should be the same at the pump and signal wavelengths. The monotonous increase of the silica refractive index with frequency usually precludes such phase-matching between fundamental modes in a given fiber. However, in microfibers phase-matching to higher-order modes at the signal wavelength is straightforwardly achieved. Earlier theoretical results suggest that a 50% conversion efficiency can be achieved in a 1 cm-piece of microfiber, and more than 90% can be obtained over 5 cm, using a pump power of 1 kW. These calculations, however, assume an ideal microfiber with a uniform diameter. Since the phase-matching is critically dependent on the fiber diameter being just right, inevitable diameter fluctuations has made it impossible to achieve such conversion rates in fabricated microfibers.
One solution could be to increase the pump power, since microfiber damage typically does not set in before reaching the 10 kW level. This will allow using shorter fiber lengths, alleviating the problem of diameter fluctuations. Instead of just increasing the output of the pump laser, Lee and co-workers suggest a more clever approach. By twisting the microfiber into a loop, whose in- and outgoing fiber ends are in close proximity, a resonant cavity for the pump light can be formed within the loop. In this way, the pump intensity in the loop cavity can be enhanced by almost an order of magnitude. Conversion efficiencies on the percent level are then obtained already at a pump power level of 100 W in a loop having a length of only 3 mm. At 600 W, the conversion efficiency is more than 50%. The reduced length of the microfiber means that longitudinal homogeneity is more likely to be maintained. The authors also show that it may be possible to further enhance the THG efficiency by making the loop resonant for light at the signal frequency as well as at the pump frequency.
While the present paper is purely numerical, microfiber loop resonators are well established in the laboratory, and the work therefore points out a direction of research which can immediately be taken up by experimenters. It will indeed be interesting to see if present-day state-of-the-art microfibers will allow efficient THG by utilizing the loop resonator concept.
Add Comment
You must log in to add comments.
Article Information
Resonantly enhanced third harmonic generation in microfiber loop resonators
Timothy Lee, Neil G. R. Broderick, and Gilberto Brambilla
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 30(3) 505-511 (2013) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF