Transverse Anderson Localization in Optical Fibers: High-Quality Wave Transmission and Novel Lasing Applications Behnam Abaie Student
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Optical Science and Engineering ETDs Engineering ETDs Fall 12-5-2018 Transverse Anderson localization in optical fibers: high-quality wave transmission and novel lasing applications Behnam Abaie Student Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ose_etds Part of the Optics Commons, and the Other Engineering Commons Recommended Citation Abaie, Behnam. "Transverse Anderson localization in optical fibers: high-quality wave transmission and novel lasing applications." (2018). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ose_etds/70 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Engineering ETDs at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Optical Science and Engineering ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Behnam Abaie Candidate Physics and Astronomy Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Arash Mafi , Chairperson David Dunlap Mani Hossein-Zadeh Alejandro Manjavacas i Transverse Anderson localization in optical fibers: high-quality wave transmission and novel lasing applications by Behnam Abaie M.S., Optical Science & Engineering, 2016 M.S., Photonics, Shahid Beheshti University, 2011 B.S., Physics, University of Tabriz, 2008 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Optical Science & Engineering The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May, 2019 ii Dedication To my beloved parents, for their unconditional support. iii Acknowledgments I would like to express my gratitude towards many individuals whose help and assis- tance made it possible for me to accomplish this work. First and foremost I offer my sincerest thanks to my supervisor Professor Arash Mafi for his support and encour- agement during this project. At many stages in the course of this research project I benefited from his advice, particularly so when exploring new ideas. His positive outlook and confidence in my research inspired me and gave me confidence. He was always there whenever I needed his guidance. I lack in words to show my gratitude of his motivation, cooperation and guidance I shall be indebted to him all through my life. I wish to thank the members of my dissertation committee: Professors David Dunlap, Mani Hossein-Zadeh, and Alejandro Manjavacas for generously offering their time, support, guidance and good will throughout the preparation and review of this dissertation. I am highly thankful to Dr. Salman Karbasi for very fruitful discussions, and for helping me to experience a quicker and more efficient start to my research. I would like to thank Professor John Ballato and Thomas Hawkins from the Material Science department at Clemson University for providing the glass optical fiber with disordered air voids which has been utilized in Chapter 5. I would like to thank Professor Axel Sch¨ulzgenfrom CREOL, College of Optics and Photonics, at the University of Central Florida for providing a new type of air-glass disordered fiber which has been used in Chapter 6. I would like to thank all of my labmates Dr. Hamed Pourbeyram, Esmaeil Mobini, Mostafa Peysokhan, and Cody Bassett for making a positive atmosphere in our lab over the period of my stay at Mafi research group. I would like to thank Professor Mansoor Sheik-Bahae and his group members whom I had the chance to collaborate with during the last two years of my Ph.D. I express my heartfelt thanks to Sarah Peceny, Mostafa Aghaei, Amir Raeisi, Ali Rastegari, Behsan Behzadi, Ali Nema- tollahisarvestani, and all my dear friends in Albuquerque who have been like my family while I was thousands of kilometers away from my home country. Last but not least, my deepest gratitude goes to my parents, my brother, and my sisters for their unflagging love and support and uplifting motivations. iv Transverse Anderson localization in optical fibers: high-quality wave transmission and novel lasing applications by Behnam Abaie M.S., Optical Science & Engineering, 2016 M.S., Photonics, Shahid Beheshti University, 2011 B.S., Physics, University of Tabriz, 2008 Ph.D., Optical Science & Engineering, University of New Mexico, 2018 Abstract In this dissertation, transverse Anderson localization (TAL) of light mediated by disordered optical fibers is exploited for high-quality optical wave transmission and novel random lasing applications. En route, we first establish a powerful numerical platform for detailed investigation of TAL optical fibers (TALOF). Our approach is based on a modal perspective as opposed to beam propagation method (BPM) which was primarily used in the previous studies of TAL in disordered optical fibers. The versatile numerical tools developed in our simulations result in a potent methodology for simulation of TALOFs; the result is a fast and effective algorithm which can be implemented on personal computers in contrast to the previous efforts which required high performance computing and were quite time consuming. In addition, the modal perspective is more robust and reliable because it is independent of the initial exci- v tation properties, encompasses the full vectorial nature of light, and depends solely on the features of the disordered fiber. As one of the significant applications of TALOFs, the first laser device mediated by these fibers is reported. The complex nature of the disordered fiber in combi- nation with lasing action result in a rich physical system which is of fundamental and practical importance in the context of random lasers. Most of the previously reported random lasers suffer from multi-directional emission and spectral instabil- ity which have prevented these otherwise versatile light sources from being main stream photonic devices. Random laser action in TALOF is directional and free of spectral instability; light amplification in TALOF occurs in transmission channels which are induced by transversely localized modes. We demonstrate that the strong isolation of these transmission channels reduces the mode competition significantly and the resulting random fiber laser is highly directional and free of chaotic spectral fluctuations. As another major contribution of this dissertation, we show that while disorder is always considered as a source of noise and deviation from the ideal performance in optical devices, if the randomness is strong enough, high-quality single-mode wave transmission is supported in completely disordered optical fibers, thanks to the pe- culiar Anderson localization phenomenon. Our detailed numerical and experimental analysis on the beam quality of the Anderson localized modes proves that a substan- tial number of them possess M 2 < 2 indicative of nearly diffraction limited beam qualities. Our studies in this dissertation pave the way for a new class of single-mode fiber lasers and hint to the potential of our disordered fiber in nonlinear applications where a high quality wavefront is required.fdece vi Contents List of Figures xi List of Tables xxii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Anderson localization . .1 1.2 Transverse Anderson localization . .6 1.3 TAL optical fiber (TALOF) . .8 1.4 Dissertation outline . 10 2 Impact of the boundaries on TAL; a modal perspective 12 2.1 Modal Analysis . 14 2.2 Results and discussion . 16 2.2.1 Average width of the localized modes . 16 2.2.2 Average exponential decay rate of the localized modes . 18 2.2.3 Asymmetry of the localized modes . 21 vii Contents 2.2.4 Spatial density of the localized modes . 22 3 Scaling analysis of a quasi-1D disordered waveguide 26 3.1 1D disordered lattice index profile . 30 3.2 Analysis of the mode-width PDF . 32 3.2.1 Impact of the index difference in the disordered waveguide . 34 3.2.2 Impact of the boundary index difference . 35 3.2.3 Impact of the unit slab thickness . 40 3.3 Discussion . 47 4 Scaling analysis of TALOF 51 4.1 Numerical methodology . 51 4.2 Scaling of the mode-area PDF . 53 4.2.1 Impact of ∆ncore on the disordered fiber . 56 4.2.2 Impact of the scatterer unit size on the disordered fiber . 57 5 Random lasing in TALOF 60 5.1 Materials and methods . 62 5.1.1 Fabrication of the fiber . 62 5.1.2 Active fiber preparation and measurements . 62 5.1.3 Numerical simulations . 63 5.1.4 Characterization of the spectral stability . 64 viii Contents 5.2 Results and discussion . 65 5.2.1 Transversely localized lasing . 65 5.3 Origin of localized lasing . 69 5.3.1 Localized lasing modes . 69 5.3.2 Localization in passive g-TALOF . 71 5.4 Laser spectrum . 72 5.4.1 Anderson-localized regime . 72 5.4.2 Mixed regime . 75 5.5 Pulse shape . 75 5.6 Beam quality of g-TALOF laser output . 78 5.7 Spatial coherency of g-TALOF laser . 80 6 Disorder induced high-quality wavefronts 82 6.1 Numerical simulations . 83 6.1.1 High-quality wavefronts in a large ensemble of calculated modes 86 6.1.2 Impact of non-uniform air fill fraction . 87 6.2 Experimental evaluation of the wavefront quality in the glass-TALOF 88 6.3 Applicability of variance method . 91 6.4 Geometry of glass-TALOF . 93 6.4.1 Impact of air fill-fraction . 93 6.5 Experimental methods for evaluating M 2 ................ 95 ix Contents References 97 x List of Figures 1.1 Drude model of conductivity with a quantum mechanical revision. Free electrons are scattered by the impurities. The ordinary lattice sites are not shown. .2 1.2 Two distinct paths for an electron traveling from point a to point b. AI and AII are the amplitudes of the paths. .3 1.3 Two paths for an electron going to point b and returning to point a. The two paths are identical but in opposite directions.