Towards Ultra-High Efficiency Rare-Earth- Doped Fiber Lasers In
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Towards Ultra-High Efficiency Rare-Earth- Doped Fiber Lasers in the Visible and Infrared by Haomin Yao Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Supervised by Professor John R. Marciante The Institute of Optics Arts, Sciences and Engineering Edmund A. Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences University of Rochester Rochester, New York 2016 ii To my family. iii Biographical Sketch The author was born in Nanjing, China. He attended Nanjing University, and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics in 2006. He studied the entanglement of photons in orbital angular momentum with Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor Shining Zhu, for his undergraduate thesis. He then began his graduate studies at Peking University, and shifted his research to nano- optics under Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor Qihuang Gong. In 2009, he was matriculated into The Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester. Among the variety of research there, lasers and photonic systems fascinated him and he has been studying ultra-high-efficiency rare-earth doped fiber lasers under the direction of Professor Marciante since then. The following publications were a result of work conducted during the doctoral study: Peer reviewed journal publications: [1] H. Yao, M. W. Wright, and J. R. Marciante, Analysis of nonlinear optical and dynamic gain effects of moderate-power, pulse-position-modulated, erbium-doped fiber amplifiers for deep-space applications, Applied Optics 53 , 6155-6161 (2014). iv [2] H. Yao, M. W. Wright, and J. R. Marciante, Optimization of resonantly cladding- pumped erbium-doped fiber amplifiers for space-borne applications, Applied Optics 52 , 3923-3930 (2013). [3] M. W. Wright, H. Yao, and J. R. Marciante, Resonant pumping of Er-doped fiber amplifiers for improved laser efficiency in free-space optical communications, JPL IPN Progress Report 42-189 , May 15, 2012. Conference presentations: [1] H. Yao, M. W. Wright, and J. R. Marciante, Analysis of nonlinear optical and dynamic gain effects of moderate-power, pulse-position-modulated, erbium-doped fiber amplifiers for deep-space applications, in Frontiers in Optics 2015, OSA Technical Digest (online) (Optical Society of America, 2015), paper FTh3H.2. [2] H. Yao, M. W. Wright, and J. R. Marciante, Optimization of resonantly cladding- pumped erbium-doped fiber amplifiers for space-borne optical communication systems, in Frontiers in Optics 2012, OSA Technical Digest (online) (Optical Society of America, 2012), paper FW4D.5. v Acknowledgements I owe the achievements for my PhD studies to numerous people. Among them, Professor Marciante stands out first and foremost. His vivid personality attracted me to the field of waveguide photonics. His high vision guided me to the important and interesting topics of research, from visible fiber lasers to deep-space communication systems. His scientific rigor kept me on the right track from time to time. His professionalism was gradually imparted into my thinking and actions as a young professional. I have always been blessed with great mentors. It is a pity that I can only learn from each of them face-to-face for a certain number of years! Secondly, my committee have given me unwavering support throughout my PhD studies. I cannot count how many times I sat down with Professor Agrawal for questions on waveguides, numerical methods, nonlinear optics, laser design, etc. I greatly benefited from Professor Knox' experimental expertise, from using anamorphic prism pairs to pinpointing the source of fringes in the diodes' beam profile to using spatial filtering to offering me his aerogel, to name just a few. Professor Lin's eagle-sharp eyes saw the potential issue of whether the Tb-laser can self-start as early as my thesis proposal. When I was perplexed with the boundary conditions at a laser's end mirrors, he again saw through the problem instantaneously and reminded me of the missing refractive index in my Poynting vector calculation. I hope I can continue to learn also from these great teachers for many years in my career! vi Nobody can compare to a good peer at work. I am fortunate to have worked with Dr. Jordan Leidner from my first day in the group. He got me started with "what is located where" and "how to use this". So many times he offered invaluable insight into my problems encountered in the work. He found me great connections in other departments who helped with essential experiments. Sitting next to him in the office, I always enjoy hearing his out-of-the-box ideas, up-to-date technology news, and random interesting Friday afternoon chats. I benefited from so many people around me who offered their kind help all the time. Together they made all this work possible. Among them are Per Adamson, who keeps a treasure island of equipment and generously loaned me equipment critical to my work over the years, Dr. Ryan Beams in the Novotny Lab, Professor Robert Boyd and Dr. Mohammad Mirhosseini, Dr. Greg Schmidt, Dr. Pete McCarthy, Dr. Xinye Lou, Dr. Kejia Fang, and Anthony Yee in the Moore Lab, Dr. Lisen Xu, Dr. Yuhong Yao, Daniel Savage, and Daniel Brooks in the Knox Lab, and Dr. Ildar Begishev at LLE. I would also like to thank Gina Kern, Lori Russell, Kari Brick, Betsy Benedict, Lissa Cotter, Noelene Votens, and Gayle Thompson, for the excellent supportive work. I thank my wonderful groupmates and officemates for our camaraderie: Dr. Lei Sun, Krysta Boccuzzi, Jose Perez Romero, Sam Agnello, Raymond Lopez-Rios, Shaival Buch, Brent Plansinis, and Aku Antikainen. Last, but most importantly, I am indebted to my loving family. I dedicate this thesis to all of you. Let's have an exciting, adventurous, and rewarding journey! vii Abstract Rare-earth doped fiber lasers find wide applications in a variety of fields. Their high-efficiency operation is of interest to almost all of the applications. This Thesis explores the ultra-high efficiency rare-earth-doped fiber lasers in the infrared and visible wavelengths. Specifically, an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) for deep-space communications was optimized and the world's first diode-pumped direct-oscillating silicate terbium-doped fiber laser (TDFL) was explored. For the deep-space EDFA, a numerical model for the amplifier was developed with which the raw amplifier efficiency was boosted all the way to the quantum defect limit by properly optimizing the amplifier design. Nonlinear optical (NLO) effects were calculated and the constraints they place on the operational data format were revealed. Within the NLO-free data format space, the dynamic gain effects were quantified and presented on the data format map. Their impact on the efficiency of the whole communication system was discussed. For the visible TDFL, a model for the laser was developed incorporating excited- state absorption (ESA), which is the major obstacle to lasing. A full spectroscopic characterization of the Tb 3+ in silicate glass hosts was carried out. Two techniques for mitigating ESA were proposed and verified numerically with the model and the obtained parameters. A comprehensive design of the fiber laser was also performed yielding the optimum fiber design to achieve lasing. Finally, the experiments that laid down the foundation for realizing the visible TDFL were presented. viii Contributors and Funding Sources This work was supervised by a dissertation committee consisting of Professors John Marciante (advisor), Govind Agrawal, and Wayne Knox of The Institute of Optics and Qiang Lin of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, chaired by Professor John Lambropoulos of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. For the EDFA work, Professor Marciante contributed to the idea of averaging two solutions to avoid the bi-stable state. Dr. Malcolm Wright, at NASA, provided the specifications for the erbium-doped fiber and for the deep-space communication data format. For the TDFL work, Professor Marciante first proposed using strong intra-cavity 5 signal to suppress the population on the D4 level to mitigate ESA. Professor Knox brought to my attention using anamorphic prism pairs to circularize the output beam of laser diodes. The 1st and 2nd-generation Tb-fibers were fabricated at Clemson University. The rest of the work was completed independently by the student. The EDFA project was supported in part by NASA/JPL under Subcontract No. 1440052. The TDFL project was in part supported by the Technology Development Fund from URVentures at the University of Rochester. ix Table of Contents Dedication ii Biographical Sketch iii Acknowledgements v Abstract vii Contributors and Funding Sources viii List of Tables xi List of Figures xiii Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter 2 MODELS AND NUMERICAL METHODS FOR THE STUDY OF THE 23 EDFA AND THE TDFL Chapter 3 EFFICIENCY OPTIMIZATION OF THE DEEP -SPACE EDFA 47 Chapter 4 NONLINEAR OPTICAL AND DYNAMIC GAIN EFFECTS IN THE 68 PULSED DEEP -SPACE EDFA 3+ Chapter 5 SPECTROSCOPIC CHARACTERIZATION OF TB IN SILICATE 87 x GLASS HOSTS 3+ Chapter 6 DESIGN OF EFFICIENT TB -DOPED VISIBLE SILICATE FIBER 107 LASERS Chapter 7 DESIGN AND ASSEMBLY OF THE DIODE PUMP SYSTEM 128 3+ Chapter 8 EXPERIMENTS ON TB -DOPED SILICATE FIBERS TOWARDS 147 LASING Chapter 9 CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK 167 BIBLIOGRAPHY 172 xi List of Tables Table Title Page 1.1 Highest efficiency achieved in resonantly and non-resonantly 5 pumped EDFLs and EDFAs. Output power levels are also given. 2.1 Parameters for the erbium-doped fiber