System capable of realizing all-optical wavelength continuous tuning based on whispering gallery microcavity laser
Technical Field
The invention relates to the technical field of lasers, in particular to a system capable of realizing all-optical wavelength continuous tuning based on a whispering gallery microcavity laser.
Background
All-optical wavelength tunable micro lasers are one of the leading directions of basic research and technical applications today. Because the whispering gallery microcavity has the characteristics of ultrahigh quality factor and small mode volume, the whispering gallery mode-based microcavity laser has excellent characteristics of narrow linewidth, low threshold power and the like, and is widely applied to the fields of nonlinear optics, laser sensing, cavity photodynamics and the like in recent years. Wherein, the light emission based on rare earth elements can cover the region from ultraviolet to near infrared, and has wide prospect in the aspect of laser application. The energy density in the whispering gallery microcavity is extremely high and the interaction of light with matter is greatly enhanced. Therefore, in practical applications, whispering gallery microcavity lasers are widely used. The existing common method for tuning the whispering gallery microcavity generally adopts external tuning methods such as mechanical tuning, electro-optical tuning and the like, and the tuning accuracy of the external tuning is dependent on the microcavity size and the stability of an external tuning means although the tuning range is large, and a required system is relatively complex. Such as mechanical tuning methods, external force stretching or compression is generally required to be performed on the microcavity, and tuning of the resonant frequency of the microcavity is realized by changing the size of the microcavity, so that the operation is complex and the tuning precision is poor. The full-optical tuning operation is convenient, the stability is good, the laser wavelength can be tuned in a large range, and the full-optical tuning operation becomes an effective mode for realizing the continuous wavelength tuning of the echo wall microcavity laser.
Disclosure of Invention
In order to solve the problems of complex tuning structure and low tuning precision of the traditional microcavity laser, the invention provides an all-optical wavelength continuous tuning system based on a whispering gallery microcavity laser. Firstly, a micro-cavity laser is generated by a silica whispering gallery micro-cavity through a micro-nano optical fiber-micro-cavity coupling method, and then the output wavelength of pump light is continuously tuned through an adjusting module, so that the full-optical wavelength continuous tuning of the output micro-cavity laser is realized by utilizing the photo-thermal effect of a silica material.
In order to achieve the aim, the invention provides a system capable of realizing all-optical wavelength continuous tuning based on a whispering gallery microcavity laser, which comprises a microcavity laser realizing device and an adjusting module;
The microcavity laser realization device is used for transmitting pump light to the whispering gallery microcavity and generating whispering gallery microcavity laser;
the adjusting module is used for continuously and finely adjusting the output wavelength of the pump light, so that the full-wavelength continuous tuning of the whispering gallery microcavity laser is realized.
Preferably, the microcavity laser realization device comprises a pumping source, an isolator, a polarization controller, a silicon dioxide microcavity, a micro-nano optical fiber, a coupler, a photoelectric detector, an oscilloscope and a spectrometer which form an optical fiber loop which are sequentially connected and formed.
Preferably, the micro-nano optical fiber and the silicon dioxide microcavity are vertically placed in space to realize optical field coupling so as to excite an echo wall mode on the surface of the microcavity and further generate microcavity laser. The micro-nano optical fiber is formed by tapering a single-mode optical fiber, the diameter of the micro-nano optical fiber is 1-3 mu m, the silicon dioxide microcavity comprises a passive silicon dioxide microcavity and a silicon dioxide microcavity doped with rare earth elements, the microcavity comprises a spherical shape, a bottle shape and a ring shape, the size of the microcavity comprises 100-500 mu m, and the quality factor is more than or equal to 10 7.
Preferably, in the microcavity structure, the pump light is coupled into the silica microcavity through the micro-nano optical fiber, and the laser of the whispering gallery microcavity is finally generated through multiple energy accumulation and mode selection of the whispering gallery microcavity through the optical amplification generated by nonlinear effect of an optical field or stimulated radiation of rare earth ions.
Preferably, the work flow of the adjusting module comprises that the adjusting module outputs a triangular wave signal to control the pumping source, so that the laser output wavelength of the pumping source is continuously changed with the wavelength precision of picometer magnitude, and the output wavelength of the echo wall microcavity laser generated by the pumping source is continuously red shifted, so that the full-wavelength continuous tuning of the echo wall microcavity laser is realized.
Preferably, the operating principle of all-optical wavelength continuous tuning comprises that when pump laser coupled into a microcavity is gradually accumulated on the premise that pump light is coupled into a silicon dioxide microcavity to generate the whispering gallery microcavity laser, the temperature in the microcavity is increased due to the photo-thermal effect of a silicon dioxide material, the refractive index of the material and the size of the microcavity are changed at the moment, so that the wavelength of the whispering gallery microcavity laser is subjected to red shift, and the relationship between the wavelength red shift and the temperature is as follows:
Wherein lambda 0 is the initial microcavity laser wavelength; is the thermal expansion coefficient; is a thermo-optic coefficient, lambda r represents the output wavelength of the final microcavity laser, and delta T represents the temperature change amount.
Compared with the prior art, the invention has the following beneficial effects:
(1) The implementation method of all-optical wavelength continuous tuning provided by the invention is simple to operate, and only the wavelength of the pumping laser source is required to be changed, and the output microcavity laser is continuously wavelength tuned by utilizing the photo-thermal effect. Compared with other methods based on photo-thermal materials, mechanical tuning and the like, the all-optical tuning technical means provided by the invention has the advantages of simple implementation device, easiness in operation, high tuning precision and the like;
(2) In addition, the all-optical wavelength continuous tuning system provided by the invention has the advantages of small size, low manufacturing cost, low laser threshold, good stability and the like on the premise of exciting a laser mode by utilizing a dense mode in the whispering gallery microcavity, and has great potential and value in the future optical communication, laser radar and optical sensing application.
Drawings
In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the present invention, the drawings that are needed in the embodiments are briefly described below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present invention, and that other drawings can be obtained according to these drawings without inventive effort for a person skilled in the art.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a system structure according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a micro-nano optical fiber taper and rare earth erbium ion doped bottle-shaped microcavity coupling system according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 3 is a graph showing the measured transmission spectrum of the quality factor of a bottle-shaped microcavity doped with rare earth erbium ions at 1550 nm;
FIG. 4 is a graph of the transmission power curve of whispering gallery modes and the time variation curve of microcavity laser modes excited by a bottle-shaped microcavity doped with rare-earth erbium ions according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 5 is a spectrum diagram of wavelength tuning based on a whispering gallery microcavity laser according to an embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 6 is a graph of a fitting curve of a pumping wavelength and an output laser wavelength of a whispering gallery microcavity laser according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Detailed Description
The following description of the embodiments of the present invention will be made clearly and completely with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which it is apparent that the embodiments described are only some embodiments of the present invention, but not all embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be made by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments of the invention without making any inventive effort, are intended to be within the scope of the invention.
In order that the above-recited objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent, a more particular description of the invention will be rendered by reference to the appended drawings and appended detailed description.
Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a system structure according to an embodiment of the present invention, which includes a microcavity laser implementation device and an adjusting module 10, wherein the microcavity laser implementation device is configured to emit pump light to a whispering gallery microcavity structure and generate whispering gallery microcavity laser, and the adjusting module 10 is configured to continuously and finely adjust an output wavelength of the pump light, so as to further realize full-wavelength continuous tuning of the whispering gallery microcavity laser.
How the present invention solves the technical problems in real life will be described in detail with reference to the present embodiment.
First, the pump source 1 emits pump light to be input into the microcavity structure to generate whispering gallery microcavity laser, and in this embodiment, the pump source is a tunable laser with an operating band of 1450 nm. In the embodiment, the microcavity laser realization device comprises an isolator 2, a polarization controller 3, a silicon dioxide microcavity 4 doped with rare earth erbium ions, a micro-nano optical fiber 5, a coupler 6, a photoelectric detector 7, an oscilloscope 9 and a spectrometer 8 which are sequentially connected to form an optical fiber loop, as shown in figure 1. The isolator 2 is used for preventing reflected microcavity laser from returning to the pump source laser again to play a role of protecting the pump source laser, the polarization controller 3 is used for adjusting the polarization state of input light coupled into the microcavity, the output end of the coupler 6 is divided into two paths, one path of output light is sequentially connected with the photoelectric detector 7 and the oscilloscope 9 and used for recording the echo wall mode excited by the microcavity surface, and the other path of output light is connected with the spectrometer 8 and used for recording the spectrum information of the generated microcavity laser. The microcavity comprises spherical, bottle-shaped, annular and the like, and the size comprises 100-500 μm, and the quality factor is more than or equal to 10 7.
The whispering gallery microcavity laser of the embodiment is a microcavity laser generated by inputting pump light into a silicon dioxide whispering gallery microcavity doped with rare earth elements by a micro-nano optical fiber-microcavity coupling method. Specifically, the silica microcavity 4 doped with rare earth ions (erbium ions in this embodiment) and the micro-nano optical fiber 5 form a microcavity coupling system, as shown in fig. 2. The micro-nano optical fiber 5 is formed by tapering commercial single-mode optical fiber, and the diameter of the taper area is 1-3 mu m (the value of the embodiment is 2 mu m). The two are vertically arranged in space for coupling, and the relative coupling distance can be accurately adjusted to excite different whispering gallery modes on the surface of the microcavity. Specifically, the pump light is coupled into a silicon dioxide microcavity (a bottle-shaped microcavity is selected in the embodiment) doped with rare earth elements (erbium ions are selected in the embodiment) through the micro-nano optical fiber, the rare earth ions absorb the energy of the pump light and then are stimulated to transition to a high energy level to form population inversion, and then the population inversion is subjected to laser radiation to generate light amplification. Besides the rare earth element doped silicon dioxide whispering gallery microcavity, an undoped passive silicon dioxide microcavity can be used, pump light is coupled into the passive silicon dioxide microcavity through a micro-nano optical fiber, light amplification can be generated through nonlinear effects (such as Raman scattering and Brillouin scattering) of an optical field, and the whispering gallery microcavity laser is finally generated through multiple energy accumulation and mode selection.
In this embodiment, the silica microcavity 4 doped with rare earth erbium ions can be formed by dipping the end of a silica fiber into an acetone solution containing erbium ions for a plurality of times, and heating and melting the end of the fiber by a carbon dioxide laser. In addition, the microcavity in this embodiment is a bottle-shaped microcavity with a maximum diameter of 200 μm, and the quality factor measurement transmission spectrum of the microcavity is shown in fig. 3, and the quality factor of the microcavity can reach 4.5×10 7.
Finally, the adjusting module 10 is configured to adjust the output wavelength of the pump light, so as to realize all-optical wavelength continuous tuning of the whispering gallery microcavity laser. The specific working flow is that the adjusting module outputs triangular wave signals to control the pumping source, so that the laser output wavelength of the pumping source is continuously changed with the wavelength accuracy of picometer magnitude, the temperature in the microcavity is increased due to the photo-thermal effect of the silicon dioxide material, and the excited whispering gallery microcavity mode is subjected to triangular wave broadening, namely the resonance mode is subjected to red shift along with time, as shown by a solid curve in fig. 4. When the pumping power is further increased, the output wavelength of the echo wall microcavity laser is continuously red shifted along with the accumulation of energy, as shown by a scattered point curve in fig. 4, so that the full-wavelength continuous tuning of the echo wall microcavity laser is realized.
The full-optical wavelength continuous tuning working principle is mainly based on the photo-thermal effect of a silicon dioxide material, and is characterized in that when pump laser coupled into a microcavity is gradually accumulated on the premise that pump light is coupled into the whispering gallery microcavity to generate microcavity laser, the temperature in the microcavity is increased due to the photo-thermal effect of the silicon dioxide material, and the refractive index of the material and the size of the microcavity are changed at the moment, so that the wavelength of the whispering gallery microcavity laser is red shifted. The relationship between the wavelength red shift and the temperature is as follows:
Wherein lambda 0 is the initial microcavity laser wavelength; is the thermal expansion coefficient; is a thermo-optic coefficient, lambda r represents the output wavelength of the final microcavity laser, and delta T represents the temperature change amount.
As shown in fig. 5, which is a spectrum diagram of wavelength tuning of the whispering gallery erbium doped bottle-shaped microcavity laser, it can be seen that when the pump laser wavelength is continuously changed at a wavelength step distance of 20pm (i.e., the pump laser wavelength is continuously tuned from 1460.07nm to 1460.24 nm), the output microcavity laser wavelength is also continuously red shifted (i.e., the pump laser wavelength is continuously changed from 1553.307nm to 1553.48 nm), so that the whispering gallery microcavity laser all-wavelength continuous tuning is realized. And as the light coupled into the cavity increases, the intensity of the output laser light also increases.
As shown in fig. 6, a graph of the pump wavelength versus the output laser wavelength of the whispering gallery erbium doped bottle microcavity laser is fitted. It can be seen that the variation of the pump laser wavelength has a good linear relationship with the drift of the outgoing laser wavelength, with a maximum tunable range of 0.181nm (corresponding to 24.8 GHz), and a linearity of up to 99.95%.
According to the embodiment, the microcavity laser provided by the invention is based on the premise that the laser mode is excited by using the dense mode in the whispering gallery microcavity, and the manufactured laser has the advantages of small size, low manufacturing cost, low laser threshold, good stability and the like. The invention uses the photo-thermal effect of the silicon dioxide microcavity, and can tune and output the all-optical tuning of the microcavity laser by only changing the resonant wavelength of the whispering gallery microcavity. Compared with other methods based on photo-thermal materials, mechanical tuning and the like, the all-optical tuning technical means provided by the invention has the advantages of simple implementation device, easiness in operation, high tuning precision and the like, and has great potential and value in future optical communication, laser radar and optical sensing application.
The above embodiments are merely illustrative of the preferred embodiments of the present invention, and the scope of the present invention is not limited thereto, but various modifications and improvements made by those skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains are made without departing from the spirit of the present invention, and all modifications and improvements fall within the scope of the present invention as defined in the appended claims.