Development of non-linear waveguide devices for optical signal processing

Abstract

Reported in this thesis are advances in glass poling, a technique which produces second-order optical nonlinearity in glass. Poling of glass has drawn much attention because frequency conversion and electro-optic modulation, operations which are typically restricted to crystals, becomes feasible in glass fibres and waveguides which are widely spread media in photonics thanks to their excellent optical properties and mature manufacturing technology. Poled silica glass, despite showing about 10 times lower second-order nonlinearity than nonlinear crystals, can be competitive with them because longer interaction lengths are possible in glass fibres, owing to the lower chromatic dispersion. -gratings in fibres. This technology led to the first demonstration of an all-fibre frequency doubler of a fibre laser. Milliwatts of red light in the fundamental mode were produced by frequency doubling in a quasi-phase matched periodically poled silica fibre which was directly spliced to the output of the laser source. Efficiency up to 2.5% has been demonstrated in 11.5 cm long device with only about 100W of pump power, which means that 50% conversion efficiency is expected for a 2kW input power.

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