Experimental demonstration of NOLM switching based on nonlinear polarisation rotation

O. Pottiez, E.A. Kuzin, B. Ibarra-Escamilla, J.T. Camas-Anzueto and F. Gutie rrez-Zainos

Nonlinear polarisation rotation is shown experimentally to be an effective process to switch a bre nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM). If interfering beams have different polarisations, no power imbalance is required. Contrary to standard NOLM designs, the proposed architecture combines high contrast with simultaneously low critical power and low insertion loss.

Introduction: The bre Sagnac interferometer, or nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM) [1] is a very versatile device that is commonly used for very diverse applications, including optical switching and demultiplexing [2], passive modelocking [3], pulse compression, pedestal suppression [4] or amplitude regularisation of optical pulse trains [5]. Indeed, by adjusting the control optical power (either the input signal itself or a pump beam), the interferometer can be switched from a highly reective to a transparent state (or conversely), provided that a nonlinear (power-dependent) phase-shift difference appears between the clockwise (CW) and counter-clockwise (CCW) signal beams. When the control is the signal itself, this condition is readily obtained by creating a power imbalance between the CW and CCW beams, either through the use of an asymmetric coupler in the NOLM design [1], or by inserting a loss (or gain) asymmetrically in the loop [4, 5]. An asymmetry in the loop birefringence [6] or dispersion [7] (only for pulsed signal) also proved to be efcient, at the price, however, of a more complex design. During more than 10 years after the bre NOLM was rst proposed [1], innumerable NOLM architectures were developed, and are still being continually developed. Nevertheless, all of them rely on the Kerr self-phase modulation (SPM) effect and, curiously, the inuence of the complementary nonlinear polarisation rotation (NPR) on the switching characteristic has received very little attention, until Kuzin et al. nally addressed the problem in a comprehensive way [8]. These authors demonstrated the crucial importance of NPR in the NOLM behaviour, showing in particular that switching could be obtained even in congurations where SPM plays no role. In a recent publication [9], we applied this model to describe the behaviour of a NOLM including highly twisted bre and a quarter-wave plate (QWP) in the loop, in the particular case of circular input polarisation. In this Letter, we use this conguration to provide what we believe is the rst experimental demonstration of optical switching in a NOLM that relies on NPR. Experiment: The NOLM (Fig. 1) is made of 500 m of lowbirefringence, highly twisted Corning SMF-28 standard bre, which is fusion-spliced with the output ports of a nearly symmetrical fused coupler (coupling ratio $0.501=0.499). High twist ($7 turns=m) is applied to create strong optical activity (circular birefringence) in the bre, which will take over the residual (linear and circular) birefringence, a well known cause of slow drifts in the switching characteristic of conventional NOLMs. At one end, the bre is wrapped on a cylinder of properly chosen diameter, so as to form (without insertion loss) a QWP with angle a adjusted for minimal linear (low-power) transmission. The purpose of the QWP is to create a polarisation asymmetry between CW and CCW beams, which is needed to generate switching through NPR [8].

The input signal is a 400 Hz train of 40 ns optical pulses from a gainswitched semiconductor laser at 1.55 mm ($1 mW peak power), amplied by a three-stage EDFA (maximal gain $50 000). The pulses were then circularly polarised using a polariser and a polarisation controller prior to the NOLM input. A fraction of the input pulse train was extracted by a 0.99=0.01 coupler, detected using an InGaAs photodetector and measured with an oscilloscope. For the output pulse train, an attenuator was used prior to detection. The bandwidth of the detection setup ($10 GHz) was high enough to resolve the details of the pulse prole (which is modied by the nonlinear transmission characteristic of the NOLM). This made it possible to measure instantaneous power and not overall pulse energy. Varying the amplication of the EDFA, input and output pulses were measured for various values of input power. The transmission was then obtained by making the ratio between calibrated output and input voltages proportional to output and input powers Pout and Pin. Results: Fig. 2 shows the measured transmission characteristic Pout=Pin against input power. The inset shows a detail of the curve at low power. Switching is clearly observed, the transmission growing from a minimum value Tmin 3.3 104 at low power up to about unity when input power is increased (Tmax $ 1). These values correspond to a contrast C Tmax=Tmin $ 3000. If the NOLM were precisely biased for minimal linear transmission, with the coupling ratio r 0.501, we would have Tmin (1 2r)2 4 106, and consequently C 250 000. These values are not realistic in practice, however, as they would require an extremely precise adjustment of the QWP, which would not be stable against environmental uctuations. These values are also limited by the spectral extension of the optical signal. The t shown in Fig. 2 was obtained using a sinusoidal characteristic, which is predicted by theory [9], multiplied, however, by a slow exponential decay. Indeed, owing to nonlinear spectral widening, the power-dependent behaviour vanishes at very high power and the NOLM transmission stabilises at 0.5 [10]. It has to be noted that, according to the t, minimal transmission is not observed exactly at zero input power, but at a few hundreds of milliwatts (cf. inset). This shows that the QWP was not, strictly speaking, adjusted for maximal contrast.

Fig. 2 NOLM transmission against input power

Fig. 1 Experimental setup

Fig. 2 also allows the estimation of critical power (at which switching is reached) to be Pc $ 27 W. According to our model taking NPR into account [9], the critical power is given by Pc 0.3lAeff=[n 2Ljr 3=5j], where l 1.55 mm is the wavelength, Aeff 80 mm2 is the effective bre area, n 2 3.2 1020 m2=W is the nonlinear Kerr coefcient and L 500 m is the loop length. With r 0.501, this formula leads to Pc 23.5 W, in good agreement with experiment. If the coupler were perfectly symmetric (r 0.5), SPM would not affect switching, and the same formula yields Pc 23.2 W. This demonstrates that the contribution of SPM to switching is very small in our experiment, as Pc is not drastically modied considering NPR only. In contrast, for purely SPM-based operation, and r 0.501, the critical power is Pc lAeff=[2n 2Lj2r 1j] 1937 W [1], a considerably higher value. These results demonstrate that, in our experiment, NPR was the key process that led to switching. Using an SPM-based classical NOLM, made with 500 m of the same bre, a critical power as low as 23.5 W

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 8th July 2004 Vol. 40 No. 14

would be obtained either using a coupler with r 0.58, which leads to a contrast of 37 only, or (with a symmetrical coupler) introducing an attenuation of 33% asymmetrically in the loop, which increases by the same value of the NOLM insertion loss. Conclusions: We have demonstrated experimentally that nonlinear switching of a NOLM could be obtained using NPR. The NOLM was made of a symmetrical coupler, 500 m of highly twisted bre and a QWP. With respect to conventional power-asymmetric designs, the proposed device is characterised by either an 80 times higher contrast, or a 50% higher maximal transmission, for the same critical power and bre length. The advantages of the NPR-based NOLM make it very attractive for various applications. Acknowledgments: O. Pottiez is supported by CONACyT (Mexican Council for Science and Technology), FNRS. (Belgian Fund for Scientic Research) and the Interuniversity Attraction Pole IAP V=18 program of the Belgian Science Policy. This work was also funded by CONACyT project J36135-A. # IEE 2004 Electronics Letters online no: 20045137 doi: 10.1049/el:20045137 26 April 2004

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O. Pottiez (Postdoctoral Researcher of FNRS, Service dElectromagne tisme et de Te le communications, Faculte Polytechnique de Mons, Boulevard Dolez 31, Mons B-7000, Belgium) E.A. Kuzin, B. Ibarra-Escamilla, J.T. Camas-Anzueto and ptica y F. Gutie rrez-Zainos (Instituto Nacional de Astrof sica, O Electro nica, L. E. Erro 1, Tonantzintla 72000, Puebla, Mexico) ptica y O. Pottiez: Also with Instituto Nacional de Astrof sica, O Electro nica, L. E. Erro 1, 72000 Tonantzintla, Puebla, Mexico

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 8th July 2004 Vol. 40 No. 14