An optical communication device includes an excitation light source that outputs excitation light, a multiplexer that multiplexes signal light and the excitation light outputted from the excitation light source, a first nonlinear optical medium into which the multiplexed excitation light and the signal light are inputted, and a second nonlinear optical medium that is coupled to the first nonlinear optical medium in series and has an optical property different from that of the first nonlinear optical medium.

A light pulse source and method for generating repetitive optical pulses are described. The pulse source includes a continuous wave (cw) laser device, an optical waveguide optically coupled with the laser device, an optical microresonator, and a tuning device. The optical microresonator coupling cw laser light via the waveguide into the microresonator, which may include a light field in a soliton state with soliton shaped pulses coupled out of the microresonator for providing the repetitive optical pulses. The laser device includes a chip based semiconductor laser, the microresonator and/or the waveguide may reflect an optical feedback portion of light back to the semiconductor laser, which may provide self-injection locking relative to a resonance frequency of the microresonator. The tuning device is arranged for tuning at least one of a driving current and a temperature of the semiconductor laser such that the microresonator may provide the soliton state.

A fast optical switch can be fabricated/constructed, when vanadium dioxide (VO.sub.2) ultra thin-film or a cluster of vanadium dioxide particles (less than 0.5 microns in diameter) embedded in an ultra thin-film of a polymeric material or in a mesh of metal nanowires is activated by either an electrical pulse (a voltage pulse or a current pulse) or a light pulse just to induce rapid insulator-to-metal phase transition (IMT) in vanadium dioxide ultra thin-film or vanadium dioxide particles embedded in an ultra thin-film of a polymeric material or in a mesh of metal nanowires. The applications of such a fast optical switch for an on-Demand optical add-drop subsystem, integrating with or without a wavelength converter are also described.

Embodiments of the invention provide apparatuses and methods for generating frequency combs. A non-linear optical medium may generate new optical waves centered at frequencies differing from the input waves, while retaining the input wave properties. In the case when a parametric mixer is used to generate frequency combs with small frequency pitch, the phase correlation of the input (seed) waves can be achieved by an electro-optical modulator and a single master laser. In the case when a frequency comb possessing a frequency pitch that is larger than frequency modulation that can be affected by an electro-optic modulator, the phase correlation of the input (seed) waves is achieved by combined use of an electro-optical modulator and injection locking to a single or multiple slave lasers.

The invention relates to an apparatus for generating laser pulses. It is an object of the invention to provide a method for generating synchronized laser pulse trains at variable wavelengths (e.g., for coherent Raman spectroscopy/microscopy), wherein the switching time for switching between different wavelengths should be in the sub-μs range. For this purpose the apparatus according to the invention comprises a pump laser (1), which emits pulsed laser radiation at a specified wavelength, an FDML laser (3), which emits continuous wave laser radiation at a cyclically variable wavelength, and a nonlinear conversion medium (4), in which the pulsed laser radiation of the pump laser (1) and the continuous wave laser radiation of the FDML laser (3) are superposed. In the nonlinear conversion medium (4) the pulsed laser radiation of the pump laser (1) and the continuous wave laser radiation of the FDML laser (3) are converted in an optical parametric process into pulsed laser radiation at a signal wavelength and an idler wavelength that differs therefrom. Furthermore the invention relates to a method for generating laser pulses.

Apparatus and methods for generating controllable, narrow-band radiation at short wavelengths, driven by two colors injected into a structured waveguide. The use of multicolor excitation with the structured waveguide allows the use of very small guided beam diameters, without damaging the waveguide. Reduced guided wave mode area combined with low intensities required to drive wave-mixing frequency conversion allow the use of very compact, high average power, moderate peak intensity femtosecond fiber laser technology to drive useful conversion efficiency of laser light into the deep-UV and vacuum-UV at MHz repetition rates.

An example optical system architecture includes a diode laser source having an optical fiber. The diode laser source is configured to generate an optical signal having a main mode and side longitudinal modes and to output the optical signal along an optical path. An optical filter is in the optical path. The optical filter is configured to receive at least part of the optical signal, to output the main mode along the optical path, and to suppress the side longitudinal modes at least in part. One or more optical amplifiers are in the optical path after the optical filter. The one or more optical amplifiers are configured to receive at least part of the main mode, to amplify the at least part of main mode, and to output an amplified version of the at least part of main mode along the optical path.

A wavelength conversion device includes a wavelength converter converts a wavelength band of a wavelength-division multiplex signal, a first wavelength filter transmits the wavelength-division multiplex signal on an input side of the wavelength converter, a second wavelength filter transmits the wavelength-division multiplex signal on an output side of the wavelength converter, and a controller controls a temperature of the wavelength converter such that a difference between a ratio of power of the wavelength-division multiplex signal which is not transmitted through the first wavelength filter on the input side to power of the wavelength-division multiplex signal which have been transmitted through the first wavelength filter on the input side and a ratio of a power of the wavelength-division multiplex signal which is not transmitted through the second wavelength filter on the output side to power of the wavelength-division multiplex signal which have been transmitted through the second wavelength filter.

An optical parametric oscillator and method for generating coherent signal light involve a resonant optical cavity for coherent signal light, and in the cavity a non-parametric gain element for amplifying the coherent signal light to only partially compensate for passive optical roundtrip losses, thereby obtaining lower effective roundtrip losses. A parametric gain element is arranged in the cavity, for converting coherent pump light into coherent signal light through an instantaneous nonlinear optical interaction. The parametric oscillator has means for adjusting an intracavity optical power of the coherent pump light above a threshold value, where the parametric gain is balancing the effective roundtrip losses, thus inducing sustained oscillations of the signal light in the optical cavity. The non-parametric gain element is configured to have a limited non-parametric gain over a gain bandwidth of the parametric gain element, which is less than the passive optical roundtrip losses in the gain bandwidth.

An ultrahigh-resolution mid-infrared (MIR) dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS) measurement device includes a pump unit, a microring resonator (MRR) unit, a modulation unit, a splitting unit, a testing unit, a signal detection unit, a power balance unit, a reference detection unit and a spectral analysis unit. The measurement method includes: adjusting the laser emitted by the pump unit to the MRR unit; adjusting the modulation unit and performing dual-frequency modulation; generating two sets of MIR optical frequency combs (OFCs) with different repetition rates and splitting the MIR OFCs into the test light and the reference light; performing photoelectric conversion on the test light and injecting the test light to the spectral analysis unit; performing photoelectric conversion on the reference light and injecting the reference light to the spectral analysis unit; and performing Fourier transformation and data processing on test results to obtain absorption spectrum of the to-be-tested sample.