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Errors in the measured loss of the photonic crystal fiber in our original paper [Appl. Opt. 45, 4433 (2006)] are explained and corrected. OCIS codes: 060.2280, 220.4000.

An alternative light source for coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microspectroscopy based on red-shifted solitons in a polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber (PM-PCF) is experimentally demonstrated. By coupling femtosecond pulses into the anomalous dispersion region of the fundamental mode of a PM-PCF along the slow and fast axes, the red-shifted solitons generated can be used as the Stokes beams when the pump pulses are chosen as the pump beams. Through the process of red-shift, the frequency differences of the pump-Stokes beams are tunable in the ranges of 0 to 4068 cm-1 and 0 to 4594 cm-1, respectively. Moreover, because of the well maintained polarization states of the pump and Stokes beams and the high output powers of the solitons, CARS microspectroscopy using the proposed source will have a high signal-to-noise ratio and short data acquisition time. CARS microspectroscopy based on the proposed all-fiber light source can be used for studying a wide range of vibrational Raman spectra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher-order solitons are formed by coupling femtosecond pulses into the fundamental mode of a highly nonlinear silica photonic crystal fiber (HNL-SPCF) fabricated in our laboratory. It is experimentally observed that the higher-order solitons break up into a series of stable and broadband discrete fundamental solitons at the mid-infrared wavelength longer than 2000 nm through the process of soliton self-frequency shift due to the perturbations induced by the higher-order dispersive and nonlinear effects. The maximum soliton red-shift and the tunable wavelength range can be up to 1600 nm and over 400 nm, respectively. The nonlinear dynamic processes of femtosecond pulse breakup are consistent with the solution of the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation. This multiple stable and broadband mid-infrared wavelengths generated in such an HNL-SPCF can be used as all-fiber multiwavelength ultrashort pulse sources for multiphoton microscopy and ultrafast photonics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An octagonal multicore photonic crystal fiber is proposed. The supermode and its far field distribution have been analyzed by using the full-vector finite element method. In the condition of in-phase supermode, the influences of different wavelengths, air filling fraction, and air hole diameter between cores on normalized intensity of cores are studied. The equal intensity distribution of cores in the output plane is realized. Finally, the effects of changing the air hole diameter between different cores on the effective mode area and confinement loss are investigated. The results show that the effective way to change the relative intensity between cores is to resize the air holes between different cores. If this parameter is changed, a better intensity distribution with large effective mode area and low confinement loss for propagation is obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The polarization maintaining photonic crystal fiber (PM-PCF) with two zero dispersion wavelengths is designed and fabricated by the improved stack-and-draw technology in our laboratory. The broadband blue-shifted and red-shifted dispersive waves (DWs) are efficiently generated from soliton self-frequency shift (SSFS) along the slow axis of PM-PCF. By optimizing the pump parameters and the fiber length, the polarized DWs centered in the normal dispersion region can be used as the pump and Stokes pulses for the high resolution coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the widely tunable relevant CARS wavelengths can be obtained by adjusting the pump wavelength. The CARS microscopy based on DWs can find important applications in detecting the biological and chemical samples with the C = N, S-H, C-H, and O-H stretch vibration resonances of 2100 to 2400 cm-1, 2500 to 2650 cm-1, 2700 to 3000 cm-1, and 3000 to 3750 cm-1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ytterbium-doped microstructured optical fibers have many advantages for fiber amplifiers. Due to air-hole structures in the cladding of ytterbium-doped microstructured optical fibers, high-power microstructured optical fiber laser systems require stricter treatment of the fiber end than conventional ytterbium-doped double-cladding fiber laser systems. Here, we fabricated a fiber microlens in an ytterbium-doped double-cladding microstructured optical fiber for a fiber amplifier by CO2-laser fusion. The microlens can combine the end-cap scheme, pump coupling and beam shaping. This end face processing technology is useful for high mechanical stability, good reproducibility and miniaturization of laser systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-Stokes signals at the near-ultraviolet wavelength are efficiently generated based on degenerate four-wave mixing by coupling the femtosecond pulses into the fundamental mode of a photonic crystal fibre. When the pump pulses with the central wavelength of 840 nm and the average power of 300 mW are used, the conversion efficiency ηs of the anti-Stokes signal at 432 nm can be up to 40%, and the pulse width is measured to be 42 fs by the Talbot effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A stable dual-wavelength ytterbium-doped photonic crystal fiber laser pumped by a 976 nm laser diode has been demonstrated at room temperature. Single-wavelength, dual-wavelength laser oscillations are observed when the fiber laser operates under different pump power by using different length of fibers. Stable dual-wavelength radiation around 1045 nm and 1075 nm has been generated simultaneously at a high pump power directly from an ytterbium-doped fiber laser without using any spectral control mechanism. A small core ytterbium-doped PCF fabricated by the powder sinter direction drawn rod technology is used as gain medium. The pump power and fiber length which can affect the output characteristics of dual-wavelength fiber laser are analyzed in the experiment. Experiments confirm that higher pump power and longer fiber length favors 1075 nm output; lower pump power and shorter fiber length favors 1045 nm output. Those results have a good reference in multi-wavelength fiber laser. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel birefringent photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with the silver-coated and liquid-filled air-holes along the vertical plane is designed. Simulation results show that the thickness of silver layer, the sizes of holes, and the refractive index of liquid strongly strengthen the gaps between two polarized directions. The surface plasmon resonance peak along y axis can be up to 675.8 dB/cm at 1.33 μm. The proposed PCF has important application in polarization devices, such as filters and beam splitters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate the fabricating method for Yb3+-doped silica glass and double-cladding large mode area photonic crystal fiber (LMA PCF) based on laser sintering technology combined with a liquid phase doping method. The doped material prepared shows the amorphous property and the hydroxyl content is approximately 40 ppm. The attenuation of the fabricated LMA PCF is 14.2 dB m−1 at 976 nm, and the lowest value is 0.25 dB m−1 at 1200 nm. The laser slope efficiency is up to 70.2%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on a single-stage, high-repetition photonic crystal fiber amplifier working at 1030 nm seeded by a femtosecond fiber laser, which generates an output with average power of 2.23 W at a repetition rate of 49.5 MHz and a 3 dB spectral width of 5 nm, corresponding to a pulse energy of 45.2 nJ. After amplification, the spectrum of the femtosecond laser is broadened. A home-made, ytterbium-doped, double-clad photonic crystal fiber fabricated by laser sintering technology combined with a solution doping method with a core diameter of only 24 μm is used as the power amplifier medium. The spectral characteristics as well as the suppression of amplified spontaneous emission are discussed in detail. Experiment confirms that the amplified spontaneous emission becomes negligible with increasing incident seed power and no obvious nonlinear effects arise in this experiment. These results can provide motivation for the application of ytterbium-doped photonic crystal fiber and can provide a potential application for the high-power, all-fiber laser in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on an ytterbium-doped photonic crystal fiber fabricated by laser sintering technology combined with a solution doping method. This novel fabrication process has never been reported to the best of our knowledge. Together with low non-linearity, this PCF combines the advantages of high pump absorption efficiency and bend-insensitive, which makes this fiber predestinated for the high power fiber laser applications. The fiber laser experiment was conducted with a simple Fabry–Perot cavity to verify the performance of the PCF. A high slope efficiency of ~70.6% was obtained from a 1.5 m-long fiber. During the experiment, no roll over was observed up to the highest power level, which was only limited by the available pump power. The experimental results reveal the enormous output power scaling potential of the PCF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is fabricated from silica material purified by the complexing method of rectification and adsorption in our laboratory. The parameters of pump pulses and fiber length are optimized in the experiment, and the nonlinear optical process of the high-order soliton generation is studied. The high peak power continuums at the mid-infrared wavelength are generated by the overlap among the high-order soliton peaks. Specifically, when a PCF with a length of 60 cm is used, the conversion efficiency η and bandwidth B of the continuum generated can be up to 65% and 358 nm, and the corresponding peak power Ppeak-o and pulse width Wp are 144 kW and 30 fs. It is believed that the high peak power and broadband mid-infrared continuum can be used as short pulse sources, which will find important applications in biophotonics and ultrafast science and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the design of an imaging fiber bundle lens that consists of an objective lens and a coupling lens. The objective lens has an operating wavelength of 0.4 to 0.7 μm, a field of view of 60 deg, and an outer diameter of 9.5 mm. The coupling lens has an operating wavelength of 0.4 to 0.7 μm, a field of view of 6 mm, and an outer diameter of 7.7 mm. The imaging quality of an imaging fiber bundle lens has been experimentally demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]