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Tutorials and Case Studies

RP Photonics proudly offers a huge amount of high quality scientific and technological content to the public. Its RP Photonics Encyclopedia is famous, but we also offer very useful tutorials and case studies.

Tutorials

In the following, we offer some comprehensive physics-based tutorials, from which you can learn a lot. While each encyclopedia article targets a specific article keyword, a tutorial introduces the readers into a certain subject area related to a larger number of encyclopedia articles. It often also discusses issues of practical importance.

SPIE Field Guide to Lasers
SPIE Field Guide to Laser Pulse Generation
SPIE Field Guide to Optical Fiber Technology

Dr. Paschotta has authored these three popular SPIE Field Guides. Click on the images!

Tutorials

tutorial passive fiber optics

Passive Fiber Optics

This is a comprehensive introduction to fiber optics, focusing on passive (non-amplifying) fibers. It explains basic principles as well as practical aspects.

#fibers#pulses

Tutorials

tutorial fiber amplifiers

Fiber Amplifiers

You can learn about rare earth ions, how to calculate optical powers and ionic excitations in amplifiers, and on many other topics: ASE, forward vs. backward pumping, double-clad fibers, amplification of light pulses, amplifier noise, and multi-stage amplifiers.

#fibers#amplifiers#pulses

Tutorials

tutorial modeling

Modeling and Simulation of Fiber Amplifiers and Lasers

This is an physics-based introduction into the modeling of fiber amplifiers and fiber lasers, as required for efficient research and development. Many aspects of amplifier and laser operation can be simulated, leading to a solid quantitative understanding.

#fibers#amplifiers#pulses

Tutorials

tutorial pulse amp

Modeling of Pulse Amplification

This tutorial explains the amplification of light pulses, with particular focus on fiber amplifiers, but also some content on bulk laser amplifiers.

#fibers#amplifiers#pulses

Case Studies

Our case studies nicely complement the tutorials and encyclopedia articles. Each one provides a quantitative analysis of a concrete case of practical importance. Dive into these studies to improve your understanding of the physics and technology background and of suitable methods to investigate such things. You may also get inspired for further work.

You may deselect some topics to more easily find what is of interest for you:

modes dispersion telecom amplifiers
lasers ASE pulses

Case Studies

case study multimode fibers

Case Study: Mode Structure of a Multimode Fiber

We explore various properties of guided modes of multimode fibers. We also test how the mode structure of such a fiber reacts to certain changes of the index profile, e.g. to smoothening of the index step.

#modes

Case Studies

case study number of modes

Case Study: Number of Modes of a Highly Multimode Fiber

We seek a simple equation for estimating for the number of modes of a highly multimode fiber, which can be applied to fiber designs with arbitrary shapes of the refractive index profile. Instead of applying complicated mathematics, we build a hypothesis and subject that to multiple numerical tests.

#modes

Case Studies

case study numerical aperture

Case Study: The Numerical Aperture of a Fiber: a Strict Limit for the Acceptance Angle?

The requirement of total internal reflection would seem to set a strict limit for the angular distributions of fiber modes. However, some modes are found to exceed that limit significantly. We investigate that in detail for single-mode, few-mode and multimode fibers.

#modes

Case Studies

case study fiber dispersion engineering

Case Study: Dispersion Engineering for Telecom Fibers

We explore different ways of optimizing refractive index profile for specific chromatic dispersion properties of telecom fibers, resulting in dispersion-shifted or dispersion-flattened fibers. This also involves automatic optimizations.

#modes#dispersion#telecom

Case Studies

case study parabolic index fiber

Case Study: Telecom Fiber With Parabolic Index Profile

We investigate how intermodal dispersion of a multimode fiber can be minimized with a parabolic doping profile.

#modes#telecom

Case Studies

case study edfa lw signal

Case Study: Erbium-doped Fiber Amplifier for a Long-wavelength Signal

Amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) turns out to be a limiting factor, requiring a dual-stage amplifier design.

#amplifiers#ASE#telecom

Case Studies

case study edfa for pulses

Case Study: Erbium-doped Fiber Amplifier for Rectangular Nanosecond Pulses

We deal with deformations of the pulse shape due to gain saturation. These can be minimized by pre-distorting the input pulses.

#amplifiers#pulses

Case Studies

case study edfa multiple signals

Case Study: Erbium-doped Fiber Amplifier for Multiple Signals

We optimize an amplifier for equal output powers of signals spanning a substantial wavelength range. There is a trade-off between power efficiency and noise performance.

#amplifiers#telecom

Case Studies

case study ASE in Yb fibers

Case Study: ASE in Ytterbium-doped Fibers

We study various aspects of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) in ytterbium-doped fibers – for example, why it is different in forward and backward direction, how the fiber length can have a crucial impact, and how the fiber core diameter matters.

#amplifiers#ASE

Case Studies

case study double-clad fiber amplifier

Case Study: Designing a Double-clad Fiber Amplifier

We develop a double-clad fiber amplifier with high gain, where we have to care about limiting losses by ASE.

#amplifiers#ASE

Case Studies

case study 975-nm fiber lasers

Case Study: Ytterbium-doped 975-nm Fiber Lasers

We explore how to realize Yb-doped fiber lasers emitting at the tricky wavelength of 975 nm. This turns out to be challenging for devices with double-clad fibers due to ASE at longer wavelengths.

#lasers#ASE

Case Studies

case study pulse compression

Case Study: Nonlinear Pulse Compression in a Fiber

We explore how we can spectrally broaden light pulses by self-phase modulation in a fiber and subsequently compress the pulses using a dispersive element. A substantial reduction in pulse duration by more than an order of magnitude is easily achieved, while the pulse quality is often not ideal.

#pulses#nonlinearities

Case Studies

case study parabolic pulse fiber amplifier

Case Study: Parabolic Pulses in a Fiber Amplifier

We explore the regime of parabolic pulse amplification in an Yb-doped single-mode fiber. We find suitable system parameters and investigate limiting effects.

#amplifiers#pulses#nonlinearities

Case Studies

case study soliton experiments

Case Study: Numerical Experiments With Soliton Pulses in Fibers

We investigate various details of soliton pulse propagation in passive fibers, using numerical simulations.

#pulses#nonlinearities

Case Studies

case study soliton collision

Case Study: Collision of Soliton Pulses in a Fiber

We let two soliton pulses collide in a fiber. Surprisingly, they survive such collisions, even if we involve solitons of higher order.

#pulses#nonlinearities

Case Studies

case study soliton self-frequency shift

Case Study: Soliton Self-frequency Shift in Glass Fibers

We numerically simulate the soliton self-frequency shift, which is caused by stimulated Raman scattering. Influences like higher-order dispersion are found to be quite relevant.

#pulses#nonlinearities

Case Studies

case study solitons in fiber amplifier

Case Study: Soliton Pulses in a Fiber Amplifier

We investigate to which extent soliton pulses could be amplified in a fiber amplifier, preserving the soliton shape and compressing the pulses temporally.

#amplifiers#pulses#nonlinearities

Case Studies

case study Raman scattering in fiber amplifier

Case Study: Raman Scattering in a Fiber Amplifier

We investigate the effects of stimulated Raman scattering in an ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier for ultrashort pulses, considering three very different input pulse duration regimes. Surprisingly, the effect of Raman scattering always gets substantial only on the last meter, although the input peak powers vary by two orders of magnitude.

#amplifiers#pulses#nonlinearities

Case Studies

case study fiber cpa

Case Study: Chirped-pulse Ytterbium-doped Fiber Amplifier System

We design an ytterbium-doped chirped-pulse fiber amplifier system. We investigate how the remaining nonlinear effects limit the possible performance parameters.

#amplifiers#pulses

Case Studies

case study supercontinuum generation

Case Study: Supercontinuum Generation in a Germanosilicate Single-mode Telecom Fiber

We explore supercontinuum generation in telecom fibers. This works well for wavelengths beyond the zero dispersion wavelength. For operation with shorter-wavelength pulses, other fibers are required.

#pulses

We have various smaller case studies made with our simulation and design software:

Various Resources

For more information on fiber optics, see also

If you are interested in laser development and physical modeling, you should see our presentation on the 'transparent laser'.

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