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Theory of the Frequency Comb Output from a Femtosecond Fiber Laser

Published

Author(s)

Nathan R. Newbury, Brian Washburn

Abstract

The output of a femtosecond fiber laser will form a frequency comb that can be phase-locked through feedback to the cavity length and pump power. A perturbative theory is developed to describe this frequency comb output, in particular for a solitonic fiber laser. The effects of resonant dispersion, saturation of the self-amplitude modulation, cavity loss, third order dispersion, Raman scattering, self-phase modulation, and self-steepening on the spacing and offset of the fiber-laser frequency comb are given. The mechanisms by which the pump power, cavity length and cavity loss control the frequency comb spacing and offset are identified. Transfer functions are derived for the comb response to change in cavity length, pump power or cavity loss. This theory can potentially be applied to other frequency comb sources as well.
Citation
IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics
Volume
41
Issue
11

Keywords

frequency measurement., laser stability, optical fiber lasers, optical fiber measurement applications

Citation

Newbury, N. and Washburn, B. (2005), Theory of the Frequency Comb Output from a Femtosecond Fiber Laser, IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=31880 (Accessed October 10, 2024)

Issues

If you have any questions about this publication or are having problems accessing it, please contact reflib@nist.gov.

Created October 31, 2005, Updated October 12, 2021