Fast temporal dynamics of the erbium-doped fiber ring laser.

摘要

The dynamics of a unidirectional erbium-doped fiber ring laser have been observed for individual round trips in the cavity. A study of the standard deviation of intensity fluctuations as a function of pump power is presented. It was found that the intensity fluctuations grow rapidly with increasing mean output intensity. Measurements of the optical spectrum of the output intensity show that thousands of modes circulate within the full-width at half-maximum. Time traces of the output were also characterized with probability distributions, time delay plots, auto- and crosscorrelation functions, power spectral densities and rf spectrums.; A rich variety of dynamical states, including square wave pulses and irregular temporal patterns were observed in the orthogonal polarization eigenstates as operating parameters were changed. The experimentally observed properties are described by a unified model based upon an Ikeda-type delay-differential equation model of the laser. Fiber birefringence, polarization controller adjustment, and the frequency difference between the orthogonal mode groups were shown to strongly influence the nature of the dynamics.