We propose a fibre-based approach for generation of optical frequency combs (OFC) with the aim of calibration of astronomical spectrographs in the low and medium-resolution range. This approach includes two steps: in the first step, an appropriate state of optical pulses is generated and subsequently moulded in the second step delivering the desired OFC. More precisely, the first step is realised by injection of two continuous-wave (CW) lasers into a conventional single-mode fibre, whereas the second step generates a broad OFC by using the optical solitons generated in step one as initial condition. We investigate the conversion of a bichromatic input wave produced by two initial CW lasers into a train of optical solitons which happens in the fibre used as step one. Especially, we are interested in the soliton content of the pulses created in this fibre. For that, we study different initial conditions (a single cosine-hump, an Akhmediev breather, and a deeply modulated bichromatic wave) by means of Soliton Radiation Beat Analysis and compare the results to draw conclusion about the soliton content of the state generated in the first step. In case of a deeply modulated bichromatic wave, we observed the formation of a collective soliton crystal for low input powers and the appearance of separated solitons for high input powers. An intermediate state showing the features of both, the soliton crystal and the separated solitons, turned out to be most suitable for the generation of OFC for the purpose of calibration of astronomical spectrographs.Optical frequency combs constitute a discrete optical spectrum with lines that are equidistantly positioned. Frequency combs generated in modelocked lasers have been proposed and already successfully tested as calibration sources for high-resolution astronomical spectrographs. However, there is a variety of novel astronomical instruments that operate in the low-and medium resolution range. They also would profit from the deployment of frequency combs as calibration marks. We propose a fibre-based approach for optical frequency comb generation that is specifically suitable for spectrographs with low and medium resolution. This approach consists of two fibres fed with two continuouswave lasers. To be able to generate broadband, stable, and low-noise frequency combs, we need to understand the optical pulse formation in different fibre stages. In this paper, we focus our attention on the pulse build-up in the first fibre stage of the proposed approach and study it numerically by means of the Soliton Radiation Beat Analysis.

We investigate the generation of optical frequency combs through a cascade of four-wave mixing processes in nonlinear fibres with optimised parameters. The initial optical field consists of two continuous-wave lasers with frequency separation larger than 40 GHz (312.7 pm at 1531 nm). It propagates through three nonlinear fibres. The first fibre serves to pulse shape the initial sinusoidal-square pulse, while a strong pulse compression down to sub-100 fs takes place in the second fibre which is an amplifying erbium-doped fibre. The last stage is a low-dispersion highly nonlinear fibre where the frequency comb bandwidth is increased and the line intensity is equalised. We model this system using the generalised nonlinear Schrödinger equation and investigate it in terms of fibre lengths, fibre dispersion, laser frequency separation and input powers with the aim to minimise the frequency comb noise. With the support of the numerical results, a frequency comb is experimentally generated, first in the near infra-red and then it is frequency-doubled into the visible spectral range. Using a MUSE-type spectrograph, we evaluate the comb performance for astronomical wavelength calibration in terms of equidistancy of the comb lines and their stability.

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Using an Er-doped fiber laser as a test bed, here we for the first time experimentally demonstrate the simultaneous effect of the fast scale (round-trip time) and slow scale (thousands round-trip time) instabilities on the emergence of breathers similar to the Akhmediev breathers, Peregrine solitons, and partially mode-locked chaotic solitons. The anomalous statistics of the laser output power justifies the connection of the observed spatiotemporal structures with bright and dark rogue waves. Apart from the interest in laser physics for revealing mechanisms of the multiscale dynamics, the obtained results can be of fundamental interest for studying spatiotemporal patterns induced by the interplay of the mechanisms mentioned above in various distributed systems.

We numerically investigated the possibility of generating high-quality ultra-short optical pulses with broad frequencycombs spectra in a system consisting of three optical fibres. In this system, the first fibre is a conventional single-mode fibre, the second one is erbium-doped, and the last one is a low-dispersion fibre. The system is pumped with a modulated sine-wave generated by two equally intense lasers with the wavelengths 1 and 2 such that their central wavelength is at = (1 + 2)/2 = 1531. The modelling was performed using the generalised nonlinear Schrödinger equation which includes the Kerr and Raman effects, as well as the higher-order dispersion and gain. We took a close look at the pulse evolution in the first two stages and studied the pulse behaviour depending on the group-velocity dispersion and the nonlinear parameter of first fibre, as well as the initial laser frequency separation. For these parameters, the optimum lengths of fibre 1 and 2 were found that provide low-noise pulses. To characterise the pulse energy content, we introduced a figure of merit that was dependent on the group-velocity dispersion, the nonlinearity of fibre 1, and the laser separation.