Turbulence hierarchy in a random fibre laser

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 8; no. 1; p. 15731
• Main Authors: González, Iván R. Roa, Lima, Bismarck C., Pincheira, Pablo I. R., Brum, Arthur A., Macêdo, Antônio M. S., Vasconcelos, Giovani L., de S. Menezes, Leonardo, Raposo, Ernesto P., Gomes, Anderson S. L., Kashyap, Raman
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 31.05.2017; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/624/1020/1086; 639/766/530/2803; Correspondence; Humanities and Social Sciences; Lasers; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Statistical physics; Stochastic models; Symmetry; Brazil; Canada; Montreal Quebec Canada; Quebec Canada
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15731

Turbulence is a challenging feature common to a wide range of complex phenomena. Random fibre lasers are a special class of lasers in which the feedback arises from multiple scattering in a one-dimensional disordered cavity-less medium. Here we report on statistical signatures of turbulence in the distribution of intensity fluctuations in a continuous-wave-pumped erbium-based random fibre laser, with random Bragg grating scatterers. The distribution of intensity fluctuations in an extensive data set exhibits three qualitatively distinct behaviours: a Gaussian regime below threshold, a mixture of two distributions with exponentially decaying tails near the threshold and a mixture of distributions with stretched-exponential tails above threshold. All distributions are well described by a hierarchical stochastic model that incorporates Kolmogorov’s theory of turbulence, which includes energy cascade and the intermittence phenomenon. Our findings have implications for explaining the remarkably challenging turbulent behaviour in photonics, using a random fibre laser as the experimental platform. Random fibre lasers constitute a class of lasers where the optical feedback is provided by multiple scattering in a disordered system. Here, González et al . theoretically and experimentally study the statistical turbulence behaviour in relation to the lasing transition in such lasers.