A user friendly software tool for the simulation and optimization of high power fiber lasers

Abstract

Double-clad rare-earth-doped fiber laser is a new generation of high power solid-state lasers. The numerical simulation is an important approach in the configuration design and parameter optimization for the high power fiber lasers (HPFLs). In this paper, we report our user-friendly high-power fiber laser simulation software system, which integrates the design, analysis and optimization functions together. The numerical simulations of the software are with the HPFL model based on the rate-equation theory. By using the theoretical model, for specific laser cavity configuration, doped fiber parameters and pump conditions, the distributions of the population inversion, forward and backward pump, and circulating lasing intensity along the doped fiber can be calculated, and thus, the main output characteristics, such as cavity gain, output power and laser efficiency, can be achieved accordingly. On the basis of the simulation results, the software supplies the functions developed for designs and optimizations of the pump configuration, doped fiber length and the reflectivity of output mirror. By combining the calculated mode-field distribution in doped fibers with the mechanism of curvature loss to suppress the higher-order modes, the software also supplies the function for optimizing the beam quality. With graphical user interface (GUI), all the functions of the software are provided function tools in menu options, especially for those which may be used frequently, toolbar buttons, shortcut keys and pop-up menus are also provided. The software is with single-document interface (SDI) and coded in C++ in the integrated development environment of Visual C++ 6.0. We believe it would be very helpful for the investigation and development of HPFLs.