A self-pulsating and aperiodic optical fibre source based on cascaded regeneration

There is currently much work focusing on designing multiwavelength and wavelength tunable self-pulsating fibre sources due to their various applications in optical communication systems. In this thesis, we propose a novel self-pulsating and aperiodic optical fibre source based on cascaded regeneration. The source can be distinguished among three operation regimes: continuous wave (CW), self-pulsating (SP), and pulse-buffering (PB). The mechanisms that govern the number of oscillating pulses in the cavity, the pulse peak power, the pulse width, the wavelength tunability as well as the generation of sub-picosecond pulses are identified, analyzed and quantified. The self-pulsating cavity enables the oscillation of quasi transform-limited pulses with a pulsewidth of 4.8 ps at 1540.0 nm when using 0.4 nm non-Gaussian bandpass filters. Sub-picosecond pulses with an autocorrelation width of 471 fs are generated from the same self-pulsating source with modified bandpass filters and the addition of a chromatic dispersion compensator. The number of eigenpulses that oscillate simultaneously in the cavity can be adjusted from 0 up to 29,500 with proper cavity adjustment. This source has dual-wavelength output and can be tuned throughout the C-band from 1530 nm to 1565 nm.