Underlying nonlinear science of hybrid SOA-fiber laser systems with feedback

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Ultra-fast lasers both play a major role in the progress of photonic science and technology and also provide an ideal experimental test-bed for the study of nonlinear wave dynamics, including a variety of instabilities, emergence of coherent structures, such as solitons, breathers, optical vortices and others, interaction of coherent structures with noise, and many other nonlinear phenomena. In this project we study hybrid SOA-fiber lasers, where a combination of a broadband gain of semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) with a long fiber cavity can lead to far-from-equilibrium collective phenomena, including practically important mode-locking resulting from the nonlinear interactions between a huge number of cavity modes. The joint RSF-DFG project brings together world-leading experts in lasers, nonlinear science and fiber-optics (Novosibirsk State University, Russia), mathematical modeling of semiconductor and hybrid lasers and theory of systems with delayed feedback (Weierstrass Institute, Berlin). The project aims at the theoretical, numerical and experimental investigation of emergence of coherence from an initially irregular noise field and nonlinear shaping of coherent structures in hybrid SOA-fiber lasers. New mathematical models of hybrid nonlinear-amplifying loop-mirror mode-locked (ML) lasers, Mamyshev oscillators, and ML lasers with delayed feedback, based on the Poincare mapping approach and time delay equations, will be developed and analyzed numerically and using asymptotic techniques. The formation of coherent structures will be quantified in terms of entropy and a balance between energy pumped into the laser system and entropy, which shapes the behavior of ML lasers. The machine learning methods will be applied to design “smart SOA-fiber laser designs” with optimized output pulse characteristics. The proposed combination of two important photonic technologies in hybrid SOA-fiber lasers and bringing together recently developed methods of laser physics, applied mathematics, nonlinear science, and optical engineering will produce an interdisciplinary academic impact making this project interesting to physical, mathematical and engineering communities. Theoretical analysis of the dynamics of hybrid lasers will be performed in a close collaboration with the experimental groups in Novosibirsk State University (led by Prof. S. Turitsyn), Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology in Jena (led by Dr. M. Chernysheva) and Institut de Physique de Nice (led by Prof. G. Huyet). Apart from the fundamental importance, the nonlinear physics of the ultra-fast lasers underpins the operation of numerous practical devices, offering generic methodology across different areas of science and technology and new concepts for innovation.