Open Cavity Hybrid Raman-Erbium Random Fiber Laser With Common Pump

N H Zainol Abidin,Y Mustapha Kamil,Ahmad Fauzi Abas,M H Abu Bakar,M Thamer Alresheedi,M A Mahdi

doi:10.1109/access.2019.2925357

Abstract

A symmetrical 80-km open cavity erbium-integrated hybrid random distributed feedback fiber laser (HRFL) was proposed and experimentally demonstrated. A variation of pumping schemes and cavity lengths was first investigated prior to the integration of the EDF. The impact of Raman and EDF hybrid amplification was then investigated through EDF length variation. The proposed scheme used a single common pump to incite both Raman and erbium gain to produce a single peak at a 1567-nm wavelength with maximum OSNR of 62.37 dB. A maximum total output power generation of 1420 mW was achieved with high-slope efficiency of 38%. The proposed hybrid setup has shown improved performance despite using open-ended cavity sustained by only a single pump in contrast to previous more complex hybrid schemes. Prolonged chaotic regime manifesting spontaneous pulse burst was also observed before the stable regime. The simple operation with the high performance of the proposed configuration offers a great potential for long distance or remote access applications such as heavy metals sensing or even for biological hazard sensing.

Highlights

Before the emergence of random laser, optical scattering was regarded as undesirable in the conventional laser scheme as it would remove photons from its respective lasing modes [1]
In 2010, the concept of random distributed feedback fiber lasers (RDB-FL) employing stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) as the nonlinear gain mechanism was first reported by Turitsyn et al [6], [7]
Hybrid random fiber laser was introduced [8]–[19] with the concept revolving around the fundamentals of Rayleigh scattering (RS)-based distributed feedback but with additional characteristics from the integration of specialty fibers such as single-mode fiber (SMF) with embedded gratings [8], dispersion compensating fiber [9], [12] erbium-doped fiber (EDF) [13]–[21], ring cavity [10], and Fabry-Perot cavity [11] into the laser schemes

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Before the emergence of random laser, optical scattering was regarded as undesirable in the conventional laser scheme as it would remove photons from its respective lasing modes [1]. The components within the laser is expected to be durable at very high optical power, heightening the total cost of the system For this reason, hybrid random fiber laser was introduced [8]–[19] with the concept revolving around the fundamentals of RS-based distributed feedback but with additional characteristics from the integration of specialty fibers such as single-mode fiber (SMF) with embedded gratings [8], dispersion compensating fiber [9], [12] erbium-doped fiber (EDF) [13]–[21], ring cavity [10], and Fabry-Perot cavity [11] into the laser schemes. A hybrid random fiber laser (HRFL) is reported based on the integration of SMF and EDF This configuration achieves random lasing through hybrid amplification from SRS effect and EDF gain, assisted by RS feedback. The proposed scheme confirms the behavior demonstrated by the hybrid laser reported in [12], where higher order Raman Stokes was suppressed at high pump powers

PUMPING SCHEME

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION