An All-Fiber Mid-Infrared Frequency Combs

A low-cost fiber-based octave-spanning frequency comb system operating in the mid-IR region is proposed, which is based on femtosecond-Tm-fiber-laser-pumped supercontinuum generation in a mid-IR-transmitting dispersion-engineered fiber. An all-fiber femtosecond mode-locked Tm-doped fiber laser at 2 micron will be used as a seed source for mid-IR supercontinuum generation. A femtosecond soliton fiber amplifier will be developed at AdValue Photonics by using a very short piece of heavily Tm-doped high-gain large-mode area (LMA) fiber, which enables soliton amplification of the femtosecond pulses with average power up to 1W.  Non-silica dispersion-engineered fibers will be developed as highly nonlinear fibers for broadband mid-IR supercontinuum generation by using our proprietary glass/fiber technology, which allow us to extend the wavelength of frequency combs beyond 5 micron BENEFIT: The proposed technology will offer a turnkey mid-IR frequency comb system that will be capable of self-referencing. The self-referenced mid-IR frequency comb will be very useful for a variety of high-precision metrology applications, such as high-precision molecular spectroscopy, gas remote sensing and analysis for environmental monitoring, pollution control, agriculture and life sciences, and non-invasive disease diagnosis through breath analysis.)