JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 11, NO.
11, NOVEMBER 1993
Analysis of a Passively Mode-Locked
Self-starting All-Fiber Soliton Laser
V. Tzelepis, S. Markatos, S. Kalpogiannis, Th. Sphicopoulos, and C. Caroubalos
Abstract-In this paper, modelling results are presented for a
passively mode-locked figure-eight laser (F8L) supporting a
linear polarization state. Starting from amplified spontaneous
emission, the model produces soliton, chirped, red-shifted, ultra-
short pulses. The self-starting conditions of the laser are investi-
gated, and the erbium-doped fiber amplifier gain threshold to
passively mode-lock the laser is also determined as a function of
the center coupler splitting ratio (C,).In addition, the influence
of C,,as well as the effects of the cavity length ( L J , first- and
second-order group velocity dispersion to the F8L operating
parameters, and output pulse characteristics such as width,
peak power, chirp, self-frequency shift and envelope distortion,
are studied.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE use of rare-earth-doped optical fibers for ampli-
fication in optical communication systems has drasti-
cally increased the distance of long-haul high-bit-rate
links, without the need of regenerators and/or repeaters.
To increase further this distance, and to overcome the
dispersion problems, the use of ultrashort, nonlinear
pulses (i.e., solitons) has been proposed [l].For such
schemes, a soliton laser is required. So far, semiconductor
lasers [21 and all-fiber lasers [31 have been examined as
the short-pulse generating source. Among them, the all-
fiber lasers offer compatibility with transmission fibers
(i.e., no need for pigtailing), compact size, and also the
possibility of passive mode-locking. Passive mode-locking
has been demonstrated in several experiments based on
the reflection properties of the nonlinear amplifying loop
mirror (NALM) in the so-called figure-eight laser (F8L)
configuration [41, [5]. So far, the self-starting of a F8L is
assumed to be possibly generated from the amplified
spontaneous emission (ASE). In this paper, a model is
presented (Section 11) which shows that soliton pulses can
be generated from ASE (Section 111). The influence of a
key parameter, such as the NALM coupling ratio C,, on
the self-starting conditions and the output pulse charac-
teristics of a F8L, is examined (Section IV). The depen-
dence of temporal and spectral properties of the emitted
pulses on some geometrical and physical parameters, such
as the cavity length (L,) and first- and second-order
dispersion ( &, p,), is also investigated (Section V), aim-
ing toward the design optimization of this laser.
Manuscript received November 10, 1992; revised May 5, 1993. This
work was carried out under the EEC RACE 2015 project ARTEMIS.
The authors are with the Informatics Department, University of
Athens, Athens 15771, Greece.
IEEE Log Number 9211166.
0733-8724/93$03.00 0 1993 IEEE
1729
11. MODELDESCRIPTION
The laser configuration studied is shown in Fig. 1.
Consider the electric field S, of an optical signal entering
port 1 of the NALM coupler. This is being split in two
components S,, S, given by
where C, is the coupling ratio for the optical power. The
counterpropagating components undergo amplification
and shaping in the NALM. Recombination of the incident
at the coupler signals follows (1).The signal at the output
port 1 vanishes at the isolator input. On the contrary, the
signal at the output of port 2 propagates along the right-
hand-side loop. The coupler at the laser output is equiva-
lent to a loss, proportional to its splitting ratio (Ck).The
mathematical description of the laser model has been
based on the fact that the F8L is equivalent to a coupled
cavity laser [6] and consequently additive pulse mode-
locking (APM) governs pulse evolution. Indeed, we can
imagine two unidirectional fiber ring cavities, each one
corresponding to each counterpropagating signal in the
NALM, which are coupled together via the isolator loop.
In this case, pulse generation is excited by the nonlinear
phase shift provided by the nonsymmetric position of the
erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA), in accordance with
APM [7]. So, in order to model pulse evolution in this
laser, the nonlinear propagation equation should be solved
for successive round trips.
The propagation of high-intensity optical signals in
fibers falls under the nonlinear regime, where the effec-
tive refractive index of the fiber becomes power depen-
dent (Kerr effect). Ultrashort pulses, corresponding to
broad bandwidth, lead to important pulse broadening due
to group velocity dispersion (GVD) effects. In a fiber
soliton source, such as the F8L, ultrashort nonlinear pulses
are produced, so these effects play the principal role in
pulse evolution. Mathematical description is provided by
the well known nonlinear Schrodinger ( N U ) equation,
where the most significant dispersion and nonlinear terms
are included, in order to consider the corresponding phe-
nomena. To describe the operation of the F8L, the NLS
equation (2) is employed, taking into account first- and
second-order GVD, losses, Kerr effect, and soliton self-
frequency shift (SSFS). A single linear state of polariza-
 I
1730 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 11, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 1993
OUT
PUMP
Fig. 1. F8L configuration studied.
tion has been assumed
dA/dz + j / 2 p 2 d 2 A / d T 2- 1 / 6 p , d % / d T 3 + a / 2 A
= j y { l ~ 1 2-
A T , A ~ I A I ~ / ~( 2T)}
where A is the electric-field envelope [ E ( z ,t ) =
A ( z , t)e-i(Plr-oor)], E the electric field of the optical
wave, z the longitudinal coordinate, T the retarded frame
[ T = t - plz, p1= l / u g , ug the group velocity], p,, =
d"p/dw"l,= p the propagation constant, (Y the loss
coefficient, y = n 2 w O / c A e Rn2
, the Kerr nonlinearity co-
efficient, wo the center angular frequency, A,, the effec-
tive mode area, and TR the Raman scattering coefficient.
This equation can be generally applied also in the case
of an active fiber (a pumped rare-earth-doped fiber), if a
distributed gain term is added to the loss term. In this
approach, an approximate expression for the gain of the
EDFA was employed, taking into account gain dispersion
and saturation:
In this expression, Go stands for the peak unsaturated
gain, Ep the pulse energy, E,,, a saturation parameter,
Aw the 3-dB bandwidth of the amplifier, and rn deter-
mines the slope of the chromatic gain profile. The above
expression encounters the most critical characteristics of
the EDFA gain. Despite the fact that the parameters used
are not directly measurable, ( 3 ) is considered throughout
this approach, since these parameters are more informa-
tive for the laser behavior than those used in more de-
tailed doped-fiber amplifier models [8]. E,,, is selected in
order to achieve stable operation of the laser in the
soliton regime. By increasing/reducing E,,, , the laser
behavior in a higher/lower energy state could be exam-
ined. Aw has been set to 10 nm in this application, since
it was observed that low values reduce the required com-
puter iterations to reach a steady state. On the other
hand, Aw is wide enough to support soliton pulses as
short as 250 fs. A broader bandwidth setting resulted in
larger Raman shift (see also paragraph 4), but did not
affect the pulse width or shape.
The gain that a pulse feels as it walks along the active
fiber is recalculated from (3) for each pass. Since the time
separation between the pulses in a F8L is much less than
the upper-level lifetime of erbium ions and, also, a single
soliton does not significantly change the population inver-
sion, the transient phase of pulse evolution cannot be
realistically simulated in this manner. However, (3) pro-
vides a fast convergence towards the steady-state opera-
tion of this iterative procedure, which is the target of this
analysis. In this approach, the oscillating conditions are
derived, where the gain that a pulse feels compensates for
the total losses.
Unfortunately, a N U equation cannot be solved analyt-
ically, in general. In fact, there are only a few cases where
an analytical solution can be obtained under certain con-
ditions. Equation (2) can be treated only numerically, and
in this case the split-step Fourier algorithm (SSF) is em-
ployed [9]. It is a widely used method, since it offers faster
calculations for the same accuracy compared to other
methods.
, The so-developed simulation program considers optical
signals as a sequence of 512 complex numbers represent-
ing the electric-field envelope for a time frame of 10.24
ps, offering a 20-fs time interval between successive sam-
ples. According to the sampling theorem, the bandwidth
covered in this case is 25 THz. High sampling rate has
been considered, since experimental studies showed non-
linear operation in the femtosecond regime (to our knowl-
edge, 185 fs is the half-width full maximum of the shorter
pulse observed so far [lo]). Moreover, Richardson et al.
[ l l ] have noticed a fine infrastructure (a number of fem-
tosecond pulses bunched together) in certain cases, that
leads to considerable bandwidth broadening. The above
representation permits the use of the SSF to compute
signal propagation around the laser loops. To monitor the
signal evolution, and to calculate steady-state pulses pro-
duced by this laser, a number of round-trip calculations,
unknown at the beginning of the algorithm execution, is
needed. The program detects the steady-state conditions
by comparing successive round-trip output signal profiles.
Whenever a pulse wave form converges to an almost
constant profile, a steady-state operation is assumed to
have been reached.
A model for a self-starting, mode-locked laser should
simulate pulse generation assuming noise as the initial
signal seed. The only noise source in a F8L is the EDFA
spontaneous emission, known as amplified spontaneous
emission (ASE). According to both theoretical and experi-
mental data, the ASE intensity level is proportional to the
pumping power of the active fiber. For simplicity, a pseu-
dorandom signal (about 10 pW mean power) was consid-
ered. The values of the laser parameters that were used to
obtain the results presented in Sections I11 and IV of this
paper are the following (unless it is otherwise mentioned):
L, (Length of the isolator loop fiber): 6 m
L, (Length of the NALM fiber, EDF not included):
32 m
TZELEPIS et al.: MODE-LOCKED ALL-FIBER SOLITON LASER
Fig. 2. Pulse evolution originated from noise.
(Length of the erbium-doped fiber): 3 m
LA
GO (EDFA peak gain): 33 dB
AW (EDFA bandwidth): 8.2 X 10 rad/sec (10 nm),
m=l
(EDFA saturation energy): 10 pJ
(Center coupler splitting ratio): 0.48
(Output coupler splitting ratio): 0.90
( a % / a o 2 ) : - 10 psZ/Km
(a3P/aw3): 0
(Effective mode area, active/passive fiber): 50
Pm2
(Raman scattering coefficient): 6 fs
(Center wavelength): 1550 nm
111. PULSEGENERATION FROM NOISE
The signal power, defined as IA12,is computed at the
port 1 of the center coupler (all the calculated signal
envelopes are considered at this point), after successive
round-trip propagation around the laser. The three-
dimensional graph in Fig. 2 illustrates the signal power
profile, in logarithmic scale, for the first 20 round trips,
starting from noise. It is clearly seen that an initial phase,
characterized by a random signal amplification, is fol-
lowed by a sech pulse generation. In the first phase,
low-intensity residual signals ~urvive~ from round to
round. Their levels are progressively increased, due to
high nonsaturated peak gain (33 dB) and nonbalanced
coupling (0.48). Around the ninth round trip, the signal
envelope has reached a peak power level of about 50 mW.
The NALM enters the nonlinear operation regime, and
the F8L begins to act as a filter, rejecting the non-
solitonic part of the pulse profile. In this way, the devel-
oped pulse converges to a sech shape by appropriately
suppressing its wings. By viewing the same graph from the
top and drawing contours of equal power, the topograph
1731
-5-4-4-3-2-1-00 1 2 3 3 4 5
-5-4-4-32-1-00 1 2 3 3 4 5
Fig. 3. Topograph for pulse generation originated from noise.
shown in Fig. 3 is obtained. The information emerging
from such a graph can be summarized as follows:
(1) The numerical convergence procedure is more clear.
The power level that initiates pulsing, i.e., the
switching power of the NALM, can be easily de-
tected.
(2) Distortion of the shaped pulses can be determined
by comparing the space between neighboring con-
tours (a sech profile is represented by equispaced
contours in the pulse edges).
(3) Parallel contours indicate that the pulse has reached
a steady-state phase, i.e., the envelope is no longer
modified from round to round.
(4) Due to self-frequency shift, pulses propagate more
slowly than the time frame considered (pulse delay),
resulting in nonvertical parallel contours for the
steady-state signals.
The topograph of Fig. 3 shows pulse generation from
random noise, but does not secure that steady-state condi-
tions are met, as the contours are only nearly parallel,
even at the twentieth round-trip level. In Fig. 4,however,
the same pulse topograph is shown for round trips 135 to
155. The observed contours are parallel with acceptable
accuracy. Small perturbations from ideally parallel lines,
observed in some locations of this graph, do not have
destructive consequences to the pulse future (the pulse
tends to maintain its shape), providing us with a strong
indication that steady state has been reached. The pulse
delay, due to its red-shifted spectrum, is also more evident
here.
1732 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY,VOL. 11, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 1993

- ; ;
-5.1 -2.8 -0.4 1.9 4.3 50 +
P
155.0 155.0 45 -
40
35
152.6 152.6 h

g 30
25
150.3 150.3 20
15 .
-.-A A. ..
10 .
&---
-A*- ..A.
--.
-A
147.9 147.9 5 . I 8 . . - . r
I I

TZTLEPIS et al.: MODE-LOCKED ALL-FIBER SOLITON LASER 1733

times increase in the Raman shift, for a 1.3 times de-

crease of the pulse width. In conclusion, an exact repre-
sentation of the chromatic gain profile is absolutely neces-
sary to calculate the Raman shift accurately.
Temporal frequency variations (chirping) have also been
observed. In Fig. 8, some graphs show the calculated
3
chirping for several C, values. The calculated time-
bandwidth products (A v AT) lie between 0.46 and 0.39,
550 . ~ - . ~ . . . . . . . . . . indicating almost transform-limited pulses. It was found
. ~ 8 .4 .42 .44 .46 .48 .s .52 5 4 .56 . s i that shorter pulses correspond to lower products.
Cr V. CAVITYLENGTH
AND GVD EFFECTS

Designing an experimental setup for the F8L, one has

to optimize the cavity length ( L , ) : In general, there are
limits both on the maximum and the minimum value of
the length of the bidirectional loop length. The loop
should be long enough to provide a nonlinear phase
difference pNLto the counterpropagating signals through
self-phase modulation. On the other hand, it should not
exceed a certain value, as a qNLgreater than ~ / for 2 the
peak signal would prevent generation and pulse shape
stabilization in the laser. In order to exploit the dynamical
range in between the lower and the upper limit, the pulse
width has been plotted (Fig. 9) against the NALM length
.38 .4 .42 .44 .46 .48 .5 .52 .54 -56 .58 +
( L , L A ) . The maxima and minima of the graph are
marked with the corresponding ratios L c / L s o lwhere
, L,
Cr
is the total cavity length ( L , + L , + L A ) ,and Lsol is the
Fig. 6. Pulse width and peak power as a function of C,. soliton length, also called soliton period, defined as

17 -
16 - where T is the pulse width at half maximum. The parame-
15 - ters that are not mentioned in the graphs are identical to
14 - those given in Section 11. The two curves correspond to
13 - different GVD, as indicated. The cavity length was modi-
12 - fied, keeping constant the doped-fiber length ( L A )to 3 m,
11 -
the isolator loop length ( L , ) to 6 m, and varying L,. A
10 -
9 ~ ~ l ~ l ~ l ~ l ~ l ~
conclusion
l ~
arising
l ~
froml these

curves
l
is tthat shorter pulses
.38 .4 .42 .44 .46 .48 .5 .52 .54 .56 .58 are obtained whenever L , = 2LSol,whereas a maximum
width occurs around L , = 0.7LsO,.
Cr So far, the EDFA parameters Go and E,,, have been
Fig. 7. Shelf-frequencyshift as a function of C,. kept constant. Consequently this study relates the pulse
width with the cavity length under identical amplifier
conditions. In experimental studies [lo], the minimum
SFS tension, determines an equilibrium wavelength, where obtainable pulse width T~~~ for a given cavity length is
the spectrum of the pulse is finally centered. In our case, more interesting. We tried to calculate T,,,~,, for several L ,
having adopted a narrowband EDFA gain of only 10 nm, values by increasing E,,,, as long as stable pulses were
the calculated Raman shift is considerably lower than the possible to be produced. Fig. 10 depicts the results ob-
one expected in the case of no bandwidth limitation [13]. tained. Note that the corresponding L,/LSoI ratios are
By increasing A w to 30 nm, the computed red shift was very close to 2, a result identical to the former one,
+50 nm for C, = 0.57, instead of + 17 nm in the case of though a different approach was followed there.
A w = 10 nm. Moreover, the slope of the chromatic gain In Fig. 11, the pulse width at half power is plotted
curve was found to be significant. In the results shown in versus the first-order GVD of the fiber, assuming the
Figs. 6 and 7, it is concluded that a 1.4 times shift of the same value for the doped and the undoped fiber. It is
pulse duration results in a 1.7 times increase of the worth noting that T is reduced as GVD approaches zero,
Raman shift. By setting m = in (31, i.e., by reducing the and that relatively shorter pulses are obtained in the
slope of the curve, the results obtained indicated a 2.2 anomalous dispersion regime. The relationship between
1134 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 11, NO. 11,NOVEMBER 1993

Peak EDFA g i n : 50 db
Sstumtimpmm. : 5 PJ

I t
~ " " i " 1

-2.5 1 I t
-6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6

TIME (ps) -10 -5 0 5 10

D (ps/nmKm)
2 1 I t Fig. 11. Pulse width versus first-order GVD.

D :+3 ps/nm km

-6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6

TIME (ps)
Fig. 8. Chirping for C, = 0.40 and C, = 0.55.
1500 1520 1540 1560 1580 1600
Wavelength (nm)
o D=+2.6ps/nmKm
I D=+3.7ps/nmKm
D: +5ps/nmkm
.85 ,

v
j I L

.8 -
* 0.74 0 -
.75 - h

a -2 -
2 0
- -7-
.65 - -
v
gl -4 -
.6 - n -6 -
.55 - * i.92 2 -8 -
s-1 I , I , I , I 1 I I I I
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
1500 1520 1540 1560 1580 1600
NALM length (m)
Wavelength (nm)
Fig. 9. Pulse width versus cavity length. Length normalized to the
soliton period is shown in asterisks. Fig. 12. Pulse spectra for several first-order GVD settings.

p2 and the dispersion parameter D is given by

D = + 3.7 ps/ nm Km D = -(2~~/A20)&. (5)
I .75 , Spectra corresponding to some of the pulses obtained
above are given in Fig. 12. It is interesting to note the
appearance of side lobes, usually observed in experimen-
tal setups. Their relative width and location seem to

.:I,
.4
0
I

20
, I
* 1.90
40
, ,

60
, I

80
, I
100
depend on the actual GVD value. In a few papers [141,
[15], these side-lobes are related to the periodic energy
variations that the solitons undergo circulating around
fiber soliton lasers. It is also believed [lo] that the limita-
tion in the minimum obtainable pulse width is set by the
Total cavity length (m) existence of these side-bands.
Second-order GVD (expressed through &) becomes
Fig. 10. Minimum pulse'width obtainable for several cavity lengths. important for ultrashort pulses especially when the spec-
trum lies close to the zero dispersion wavelength of the
TZELEPIS et al.: MODE-LOCKED ALL-FIBER SOLITON LASER 1735

20; t practical interest. Pulse generation from noise has been

simulated, proving the efficiency of varying the center
coupler splitting ratio around 0.50, to obtain easier self-
starting conditions for the laser. A detailed investigation
of the influences of the C,, the cavity length, and the fiber
1
I , I 3 I ~ I ~ - 4 I a I ~n I
GVD to the output pulse characteristics leads to several
.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 useful results for the design optimization of this source.
Time (ps)
REFERENCES
L. Mollenauer, S. Evangelides, and H. Haus, Long distance
soliton propagation using lumped amplifiers and dispersion shifted
fiber, J . Lightwave Technol.,vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 194-197, 1991.
Hai-Feng Liu, S. Oshiba, T. Kunii, Y. Ogawa, T. Nonaka, and Y.
Kawai, Optical soliton transmission in non-dispersion shifted
fibers using amplified picosecond pulses from diode laser, Proc.
ECOC 90 (Amsterdam), 1990, vol. 1, pp. 55-58.
K. Smith, E. Greer, R. Wyatt, P. Wheatley, and N. Doran, Totally
integrated erbium fibre soliton laser pumped by laser diode,
Electron. Lett., vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 244-246, 1991.
-2 -1.5 -1 -.5 0 .5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
I. Duling, All-fiber mode-locked figure eight laser, O.S.A. Tech.
Time (ps) Dig. Ser. 1990, vol. 10, PDP8.
D. Richardson, R. Laming, D. Payne, V. Matsas, and M. Phillips,
Fig. 13. Calculated pulse profiles including second-order GVD. Self-starting, passively mode locked erbium fibre ring laser based
on the amplifying Sagnac switch, Electron. Lett., vol. 27, no. 6, pp.
542-544, 1991.
M. Kong, J. Chee, and J. Liu, Passive mode locking with a
non-linear external coupled cavity at high pulse repetition rates,
Opt. Lett., vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 73-75, 1991.
J. Wang, Analysis of passive additive pulse mode-locking with
eigenmode theory, IEEE J . Quantum Electron., vol. 28, no. 2, pp.
562-568, 1992.
C. Giles and E. Desuxvire, Modeling erbium-doped amplifiers, J.
I Lightwave Technol.,vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 271-283, 1991.
1510 1530 1550 1570 1590 G. Agrawal, Nonlinear Fiber Optics. New York Academic, 1989.
M. Dennis and I. Duling, Ultrashort pulses in erbium-fiber figure
Wavelength (nm) eight laser: Limitations of intracavity dispersion, OFC/IOOC 93,
Technical Digest, FA3, pp. 238-239.
D. Richardson, R. Laming, D. Payne, V. Matsas, and M. Phillips,
Pulse repetition rates in passive mode-locked self-starting, fem-
tosecond soliton fibre laser, Electron. Lett., vol. 27, no. 16, pp.
1451-1453, 1991.
I. Duling, All-fiber ring soliton laser mode-locked with a nonlin-
ear mirror, Opt. Lett., vol. 16, no. 8, pp. 539-541, 1991.
J. P. Gordon, Theory of the soliton self-frequency shift, Opt.
Lett., vol. 11, no. 10, pp. 662-664, 1986.
I , , , , I , , , , t N. Pandit, D. U. Noske, S. M. J. Kelly, and J. R. Taylor, Char-
acteristic instability of fibre loop soliton lasers, Electron. Lett.,
1510 1530 1550 1570 1590 vol. 28, pp. 455-456, 1992.
S. M. J. Kelly, Characteristic sideband instability of periodically
Wavelength (nm) amplified average soliton, Electron. Lett., vol. 28, no. 8, pp.
806-807, 1992.
Fig. 14. Pulse spectra for several second-order GVD settings.

fiber. The effect of p3 on the F8L pulse profiles is

depicted in Fig. 13. Apart from broadening, the pulse
experiences side-pulse separation in the trailing edge. Vassilis Tzelepis was born in Athens in Novem-
Notice also a blue-shifted component in the correspond- ber, 1965. He received the B.S. degree in physics
ing spectra given in Fig. 14. Side-lobe separation in the in 1987 from the University of Patras and the
pulse profile can be attributed to different chirping in- M.S. degree in communications in 1990 from the
University of Athens. In 1989 he joined the
duced along the pulse profile by second-order GVD. research optoelectronics group in the Depart-
ment of Informatics of the University of Athens.
VI. CONCLUSIONS He has been engaged in research projects in
coherent optical communications and high-speed
A model for the simulation of a self-starting, passively optical networks. He is currently working for his
mode-locked F8L operating in the (sub)picosecond regime Ph.D. thesis in the field of soliton generation in
all-fiber laser sources. His interests include non-linear p6enomena in
has been developed. This model is applicable to F8Ls that optical fibers, soliton generation and propagation, all-fiber lasers, optical
maintain the polarization state, i.e., devices of particular processing devices, and multi-gigabit optical systems.
1736 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 11, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 1993
Akis Markatos was born in Corfu, Greece in
1958. He received the BSc. degree in physics
from the University of Athens and the M.Sc.
degree in modem and applied optics from the
University of Reading, United Kingdom. In 1986,
he joined the Fiber Optics Group at University
College of London as Associate Research Assis-
tant working on optical fiber components and
sensor systems. In 1987 became Manager of the
Wolfson Unit for Optical Fibre Instrumentation
Systems at UCL, developing prototype fiber op-
tic sensors and systems: He is currently working on the design of
coherent optical systems at the University of Athens,
Sofronis Kalpogiannis was born in Pireaus in
March, 1958. He received the B.S. degree in
physics in 1982 and the M.S. degree in Commu-
nications in 1984, both from the University of
Athens. In 1981 he joined the research group of
optoelectronics in the Physics Department. He
has been engaged in research projects in optical
fibers, splicers, transceivers, and high-speed op-
tical networks. He is currently working on co-
herent optical terminals and modelling for soli-
ton generation and transmission. His interests
include non-linear phenomena in optical fibers, optical fiber sensors, and
all-fiber devices.
Thomas Sphicopoulos was born in Athens in
1953. He received the BSc. degree in physics
from Athens University in 1976, the D.E.A. de-
gree and the Ph.D. in Electronics from the
University of Paris VI in 1977 and 1980, respec-
tively, and the Doctorate in science from the
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
(EPFL) in 1986. From 1976 to 1977 he worked
in Thomson CSF Central Research Laboratories
on Microwave Oscillators. From 1977 to 1980 he
was an Associate Researcher in Thomson CSF
Aeronautics Infrastructure Division. In 1980, he joined the Electromag-
netic Laboratory of EPFL, where he carried out research on microwaves.
Since 1987, he has been with the Fiber Optic Networks Laboratory of
Athens University, engaged in research on Optoelectronic Devices and
Optical Access Networks. He is currently an Associate Professor of
Communications in the Informatics Department of Athens University.
Prof. T. Sphicopoulos has published more than 50 scientific papers in the
field of microwaves, optoelectronics, and optical networks.
Costas Caroubalos received the BSc. and MSc.
degrees in physics and electronics, respectively,
from the University of Athens; degrees from
University of Orsay and ISTN-Saclay, and the
Ph.D. degree in radioastronomy from Paris Uni-
versity in 1964. He worked as a lecturer in the
Electronics Laboratory of the University of
Athens until 1967 when he joined the Space
Department of Meudon Observatory in Paris.
There, he was involved in research on data-com-
Dression, digital multichannel spectroscopy, and
digital signal processing: and he sugsequently became project leader of
several research programs. He returned to Greece as a professor of
electronics in the University of Athens. He is currently Head of the
Group of Optoelectronics, involved mainly in modern lasers structures,
optical fibers, soliton generation and transmission, integrated optics, and
coherent optical communication systems. He participated as an auditor
in the definition and evaluation phase of the RACE project. He cur-
rently acts as Director of the Communications and Signal Processing
Division of the Informatics Department, Athens University.