GENERATION OF 200NM BANDWIDTH GRAPHENE-BASED

SUPERCONTINUUM LIGHT SOURCE

By

NURNAZIFAH BT MOHD RADZI

SUPERVISOR: DR. AMIRAH BT ABD LATIF

FACULTY: FACULTY OF SCIENCE

Generation of 200 nm bandwidth Graphene-based Supercontinuum Light Source.

2.0 Objectives

2.1 To investigate the theoretical aspect on the light propagation for mode-locked

fiber laser with pulse width of 100-300 femtoseconds as a seeing signal.

2.2 To optimize the best cavity design of mode-locked fiber laser as a seeding signal

for supercontinuum generation.

2.3 To develop the best hybrid design of nonlinear fiber for supercontinuum

generation with 200-300 nm of 20dB bandwidth spanning range.

3.0 Literature review

Supercontinuum light generation as illustrated in Figure1, is basically a short pulsed

light generated in a broad frequency range. Supercontinuum light source can be very

useful to be used feasibly to change the normal incandescence light bulb usage in our

home, yet with a quality beam of light with higher rate of coherency. Several other

applications of supercontinuum generation are optical coherence tomography [1],

optical communication [2], optical spectroscopy [3], biophotonics applications [4],

semiconductor inspection [5], frequency comb technology [6] and nonlinear

microscopy [7]. All fields mentioned above are basically require very high quality

pulsed light sources to be employed in order to achieve excellent outputs.

To generate supercontinuum light, a shot pulsed seeding signal is required to

propagate through some certain properties of fiber to create nonlinearity effect which

subsequently creates the supercontinuum effect. The source of the pulsed seeding signal
can be from a mode-locked fiber laser. Two types of mode-locked output are actively

mode-locking [8] and passively mode-locking [9]. The active mode-locking can be

effortlessly initiated by inserting an active modulator such as Mach-Zehnder modulator

[10] and acousto optic modulator [11] to trigger the pulse propagating in the laser

cavity. The disadvantage of this method is the output pulse width achieved is limited

by the active modulator specification which having a slower rise time compare to

passively mode-locking. This is why the passively mode-locking are much preferred

compare to active one as the quality of pulse produced by passive approach is much

better. During the earlier stage of mode-locked fiber laser development, passive

methods employed saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs) [12] as a pulse trigger;

however, the pulse produced had a limited value of pulse width, repetition rate and

having a cost-ineffective and a time-consuming fabrication process. This is then

improved when the exploration of other techniques such as nonlinear polarization

rotation (NPR) [13] and the production of devices named as saturable absorber (SA)

[14].

The SAs can be fabricated by using different kind of material such as carbon

nanotube (CNT) [15-16], molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) [17], and graphene layer

[18] that is fabricated by sandwiching it in between two fiber ferrules. In this project,

our focus is on the use of Graphene as a saturable absorber to produce the mode-locked

fiber laser output as this technique has been reported to be more reliable, robust, high

transparency, linear absorption, ultra-fast relaxation time and with a high quality of

pulse laser output compared to other kind of techniques [18]. One of the advantages of

using graphene, it has no band gap which provides better chance for any input signal to

be absorbed at low power range and transmitted at high intensity output. This property

is excellent to act as a trigger for pulsing operation.

choosing the most appropriate specialty nonlinear fiber employed in the project. A few

specialties nonlinear fiber are dispersion shifted fiber (DSF) [19], optical tapered fiber

[20], highly nonlinear fiber (HNF), Poly Crystalline Fiber (PCF) [21], highly nonlinear

soft-glass photonic crystal fibers [22] and truewave fiber [23]. The specialty fiber

selection is dependent on the region of pulse production. The research work is more

focusing on the generation of supercontinuum field in C-band region, centered at 1550

nm wavelength. Supercontinuum generation can be physically tailored by using

different kinds of nonlinear fiber in combination (hybrid method) to generate a high

quality optical supercontinuum light source as being reported by Thong [24 Thong] in

2017.

Figure 1: Supercontinuum generation on a highly nonlinear (hollow core) fiber [25]

a. Description of methodology

This project contains three major stages;

1) Theoretical analysis of light propagation of a mode-locked fiber laser as a

supercontinuum seeding signal.

2) Optimization of output pulse performance of the seeding signal for supercontinuum

generation.

3) Supercontinuum output performance study and optimization from the designed

supercontinuum output light source.

The initial phase of the project is to grasp the theoretical knowledge of the light

propagation inside the optical cavity of the mode-locked fiber laser as the seeding signal.

The theoretical analysis will be performed by using ComSol software as a simulator to

determine the optimal parameters such as cavity length, dispersion coefficient of the

cavity, the length of gain medium (Erbium doped Fiber) used, total optical cavity loss,

optical bandwidth of the laser cavity, the repetition rate, the pulse width, the modulation

depth, the stability and the optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) to determine its quality.

Two choices of cavity configuration that are ring cavity and linear cavity configuration

will be compared which one will produce the best performance of mode locked output.

The critical parameter to be optimized is the total cavity dispersion in the cavity, which is

highly depending on the cavity length and total loss. This simulator will be employed to

obtain the most optimum parameter to compare with the experimental analysis.
 The second phase of this project is to obtain the best cavity design

experimentally by following the theoretical analysis that has been done on the first stage.

All of the optimized parameters obtained from the first stage will be used in the

experimental setup to collect the best output mode-locked performances. Our goal is to

obtain the optimum performance of the mode-locked laser by using high concentration of

Erbium doped fiber with absorption coefficient of 30 dB per meter to produce the most

stable optical pulsed output. The prediction value is 150 mW of output power with 80 -

100 MHz of repetition rate. The pulse width is assumed to be as narrow as 100-300

femtosecond in order to make it capable of generation wideband supercontinuum output.

In the final phase, the development of supercontinuum generation will be

collected to obtain the most effective output wideband supercontinuum light source. We

have to identify the most efficient highly nonlinear fiber in order to obtain the widest 20dB

bandwidth possible. Current value researcher has obtained is about 250 nm wideband by

using mode-locked fiber laser. By the mode-locked cavity optimization and improvement,

through a hybrid design of highly nonlinear fiber, our aim is to widen the 20dB bandwidth

of the supercontinuum spectrum to 200- 300 nm of spanning range with 250 mW of

average output power. At the end of our project we should be able to generate the most

efficient supercontinuum output with a high quality of output power produced.

Milestones Start Date Finish Date

Development of Theoretical Model 1 March 2018 1 September 2018

Optimized Mode-Locked Laser Output 1 August 2018 1 December 2018

Highly nonlinearity fibers Characterization 1 November 2018 1 March 2019

Optimized Hybrid design of 1 June 2019 1 November 2019

supercontinuum generation
c. Flow chart of research activities

Figure 2: Flow chart of research methodology.

Year 2018 2019 2018 2019

Project activities M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F S1 S2 S1 S2

1. Derivation and development of

theoretical model of light propagation

of mode-locked fiber laser

2. Theoretical analysis of the developed

model

3. Mode-locked fiber laser output

optimization

4. Characterization of different highly

nonlinearity fiber

5. Investigation hybrid design of

nonlinearity fiber
6. Characterization of wideband

supercontinuum for different hybrid

designs

7. Optimization of supercontinuum

generation

8. Writing papers

9. Final report

Year 2018 2019 2018 2019

Project (Milestone) M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F S1 S2 S1 S2

1. Complete Development of 

Theoretical Model

2. Complete Optimized Mode-Lock 

Laser Output

3. Complete highly nonlinearity 

fibers Characterization
4. Optimized Hybrid design of 

supercontinuum generation

5. Complete project report 

6. Project completion 
6.0 Specific or potential applications

This ultra-short mode-locked fiber laser have high capabilities in wide range of area

covers in supercontinuum generation in broad frequency range. Besides, they able to

produce terahertz generation, optical fiber sensors and Light detection and ranging

(LiDAR). In manufacturing, they benefits to sheet metal cutting and welding other than

in marking, micromachining and medical cutting.

7.0 Contributions

The idea of this research is to leave positive impact on society, economy and nation

where this research’s resulting in developing skills in using pulsing wideband light

source that improves especially on current sensing, communication technologies and to

seek opportunities for small business.

The most important part is this ultra-short mode-locked fiber laser comply the

National Key Economic Areas (NKEA) in Electronics and Electrical under EPP 10 and

EPP 11. The existance of Economic Transformation Program as an initiative by the

Malaysian government leading Malaysia into a high income economy by the year of

2020 and can be accomplished by this research’s contribution. This research relevance

to Malaysia’s Transformasi Nasional 2050 (TN50) by contributing ideas for the future.
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