The 3?5 μm mid-infrared band situated within the atmospheric transmission window and encompassing numerous absorption bands of gas molecules, has drawn extensive concern in the fields such as laser communication, biomedical, material processing, military confrontation, and aerospace. Among diverse types of lasers, fiber lasers stand out for their portability and stability, thus serving as an excellent laser light source. Mid-infrared fiber materials, such as fluoride glass, have the advantages of low phonon energy, high transmittance, high solubility of rare earth ions, and a wide transmission window, which can be used as gain materials for mid-infrared lasers. Fluoride glasses are classified into fluorozirconate, fluoroaluminate, and fluoroindate glasses. Mid-infrared glass fibers have achieved 4.3 μm fluorescence output, representing the longest wavelength mid-infrared fluorescence output obtained in fluoride fibers to date. This study reviews the current research and development of fluoride glass composition and glass structure, and focuses on introducing the fluoroaluminate, fluorozirconate, and fluoroindate glasses and fibers developed by our team, which have good stability and high laser damage threshold. It also reports the progress in mid-infrared laser output achieved by our team.

In the post-Moore era, microelectronic systems characterized by miniaturization and integration and optoelectronic systems with the advantage of large transmission capacity are approaching their development limits. The silicon based optoelectronics (SBO) chip benefits from the mature CMOS technology and can integrate microelectronic and optoelectronic systems on a large scale on a silicon substrate. It is one of the best solutions to meet the development requirements of information systems in terms of miniaturization, functionality, large scale, and low power consumption. Based on the fundamental elements of information technology, our research briefly describes the development process of microelectronics and optoelectronics and demonstrates the necessity of SBO technology and its crucial enabling effect on the miniaturization of information systems. It further elaborates on some significant progress in recent years and analyzes three typical applications of SBO under the demand for large computing power, namely optical interconnection, optoelectronic sensing, and optoelectronic computing, so as to provide a valuable reference for researchers in related fields and promote the further exploration and application of SBO technology in the development of information technology.

We use an ultra-short pulse laser to pump photonic crystal fiber. Benefiting from nonlinear effects such as four-wave mixing and fiber dispersion, we successfully generate an optical communication band ultra-strong photon correlation light field, characterized by a central wavelength of 1550 nm, a spectral width of 5 nm, and a second-order correlation function g(2)(0) is up to 774.2±6.0. Through the analysis of the statistical distribution of photon numbers and the second-order correlation function g(2)(0) for coherent light field, thermal light field, and photon correlation field as functions of the average photon number, we find that the ultra-strong photon correlation light field in the optical communication band exhibits a wide photon number distribution range and a higher second-order correlation function. The results indicate that by adjusting the pump power of the ultra-short pulse laser, we can transition the photon statistical properties of the emitted light field among coherent light field, thermal light field, and photon-correlated light field. The ultra-strong photon correlation light field generated by this method provides a novel technical approach for advancing research in quantum precision measurement and quantum computing.

We propose a parallel generation method for multi-band linear frequency modulated (LFM) signals based on an extensible optical frequency operation module (OFOM). By replicating the second-stage spectral manipulation architecture, we achieve the parallel generation of multiple radar signals. Additionally, we discuss the optimization method for the output signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR) of OFOM. Compared to traditional methods for parallel multi-band signal generation, the proposed method not only simultaneously generates ultra-wideband dual-band signals but also allows for independent tuning of the generated signal parameters, while maintaining a simple and reliable system structure. In our experiments, we use this method to generate dual-band signals ranging from the very high frequency (VHF) band to the X-band, with bandwidths adjustable from 2.4 MHz to 6 GHz, and capable of producing large bandwidth signals of 1.2 GHz at low central frequencies. This technology holds potential applications in future radar systems, significantly enhancing system performance and expanding functionalities.