Single-shot measurement of frequency-resolved state of polarization dynamics in ultrafast lasers using dispersed division-of-amplitude

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel single-shot measurement system for frequency-resolved states of polarization in ultrafast lasers, enabling detailed analysis of complex polarization dynamics during laser pulse evolution.

Contribution

The work presents the first single-shot method to measure frequency-resolved SOPs of ultrafast lasers using dispersive Fourier transform and division-of-amplitude, revealing intricate polarization behaviors.

Findings

Observed complex SOP dynamics during dissipative soliton formation

Identified discrepancies in SOPs between sidebands and main peaks in solitons

Demonstrated high-speed, precise measurement of ultrafast laser polarization states

Abstract

Precise measurement of multi-parameters of ultrafast lasers is vital both in scientific investigations and technical applications, such as, optical field manipulation, pulse shaping, sample characteristics test, and biomedical imaging. Tremendous progress in parameter measurement of ultrafast laser has been made, including single-shot spectra acquired by time-stretch dispersive Fourier transform in spectral domain, and pulse magnification or compression realized by time lens in temporal domain. Nevertheless, single-shot measurement of frequency-resolved states of polarization (SOPs) of ultrafast lasers has not been reported so far, and the unregular SOP evolution dynamics in ultrafast pulses is hardly explored. Here, we demonstrate a new single-shot frequency-resolved SOPs measurement system by utilizing division-of-amplitude method under far-field approximation. Large dispersion is utilized to time-stretch the laser pulses, where the spectrum information is mapped into temporal waveform via dispersive Fourier transform. By calibrating system matrix with different wavelengths, the precise frequency-resolved SOPs are obtained together with high speed opto-electron detection. We demonstrate applications in direct measurement of transient mode-locked fiber laser dynamics. We observe complex frequency-dependent SOPs dynamics in the building up of dissipative solitons, and apparent discrepancy of SOPs between sideband and main peak in conventional solitons. Our observations reveal that the SOP plays a far more complex part in mode-locking process, which is different from the traditional viewpoint. Taking advantage of broadband achromatic optical elements, this method can be extended to measurement of much broad pulse lasers, which will pave the way for reliable measurement and precise control of ultrafast lasers with frequency-resolved SOPs structures.