Characterizing the Statistics of a Bunch of Optical Pulses Using a Nonlinear Optical Loop Mirror

Abstract

We propose in this work a technique for determining the amplitude distribution of a wave packet containing a large number of short optical pulses with different amplitudes. The technique takes advantage of the fast response of the optical Kerr effect in a fiber nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM). Under some assumptions, the statistics of the pulses can be determined from the energy transfer characteristic of the packet through the NOLM, which can be measured with a low-frequency detection setup. The statistical distribution is retrieved numerically by approximating the solution of a system of nonlinear algebraic equations using the least squares method. The technique is demonstrated numerically in the case of a packet of solitons.

Expansion of VCSEL-Based Optical Frequency Combs in the Sub-THz Span: Comparison of Non-Linear Techniques

“…Non-linear Optical Loop Mirrors (NOLM) are commonly used for pulse compression and reshaping, comb filtering, switching or multiplexing optical signals [22], [27], [28]. In this section, we propose this technique to expand the comb, therefore focusing on the spectral broadening achieved.…”