A high-gain optical injection amplification system for coherent fiber links

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/ae111a

Abstract We design a high-gain optical amplification system based on optical injection locking (OIL) technology, which has an all-fiber structure and is ideally suited for fiber-based optical frequency transfer system. The paper investigates the relationship between amplification gain and frequency detuning under different injection linewidths, showing that smaller injection linewidths result in higher gains for the same frequency detuning. Preliminary experiments show that with a 5 Hz injection linewidth and sufficiently small frequency detuning, an amplification gain exceeding 60 dB can be achieved. In contrast to previous approaches, we introduce an out-of-loop optical path with an acousto-optic modulator to counteract the additional phase noise introduced by the asymmetric optical paths, achieving a higher-performance optical injection amplification system. After effective phase noise suppression, the noise floor of 1m coherent fiber link constructed based on the optical amplification system achieves a fractional frequency instability floor of $1.6\times 10^{-20}$ at an integration time of 10000 s. Based on this high-performance system, a long-distance coherent transmission experiment over a 200 km spooled fiber link was demonstrated, which showed a fractional frequency instability of $3.4\times 10^{-15}$ at 1 s, scaling down to $3.4\times 10^{-20}$ at 10000 s in terms of modified Allan deviation (Mod-ADEV). This work presents a high-gain optical amplification method for transferring ultra-stable optical frequency standards, reducing the number of repeaters and amplifiers in optical frequency transfer, and simplifying the system complexity.

Keywords: optical injection amplifier optical frequency transfer coherent fiber link phase noise cancellation

Received: 07 August 2025
Revised: 23 September 2025
Accepted manuscript online: 09 October 2025

PACS:	42.81.-i	(Fiber optics)
	06.30.Ft	(Time and frequency)
	95.55.Sh	(Auxiliary and recording instruments; clocks and frequency standards)

Fund: Project supported by the National Major Science and Technology Infrastructure Project of China, for “High Precision Ground-based Time Service System” (Grant No. 2017- 000052-73-01-00240), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 12303077), and the Innovation Program for Quantum Science and Technology (Grant No. 2021ZD0300900).

Corresponding Authors: Xiang Zhang, Tao Liu, Rui-Fang Dong, Shou-Gang Zhang
E-mail: zhangxiang@ntsc.ac.cn;taoliu@ntsc.ac.cn;dongruifang@ntsc.ac.cn;szhang@ntsc.ac.cn

Cite this article:

Ru Yuan(袁茹), Xiang Zhang(张翔), Qian Zhou(周茜), Qi Zang(臧琦), Bo-Lin Zhang(张林波), Yi-Ting Liu(刘依婷), Dan Wang(王丹), Jie Liu(刘杰), Yu-Can Zhang(张钰灿), Yu-Fang Lei(雷语芳), Tao Liu(刘涛), Rui-Fang Dong(董瑞芳), and Shou-Gang Zhang(张首刚) A high-gain optical injection amplification system for coherent fiber links 2026 Chin. Phys. B 35 044209

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A high-gain optical injection amplification system for coherent fiber links

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