Single-frequency fiber ring laser with 1W output power at 1.5 µm.

Alexander Polynkin,N Peyghambarian,Pavel Polynkin,Masud Mansuripur

doi:10.1364/opex.13.003179

Alexander Polynkin, N Peyghambarian + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1364/opex.13.003179

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Abstract

We report a single-frequency fiber laser with 1W output power at 1.5 mum which is to our knowledge, five times the highest power from a single-frequency fiber laser reported to-date. The short unidirectional ring cavity approach is used to eliminate the spatial gain hole-burning associated with the standing-wave laser designs. A heavily-doped phosphate fiber inside the ring resonator serves as the active medium of the laser. Up to 700mW of output power, the longitudinal mode hops have been completely eliminated by using the adjustable coupled-cavity approach. At higher power levels, the laser still oscillates at a single longitudinal mode, but with infrequent mode hops that occur at a rate of few hops per minute. Compared to the Watt-level single-frequency amplified sources, our approach is simpler and offers better noise performance.

Highlights

High power single-frequency fiber lasers can find applications in such areas as communications, nonlinear optics, interferometry and as the master oscillators in high-power Master-OscillatorPower-Amplifier designs (MOPA) [1]
The second approach employs active fibers based on low melting temperature glasses that allow an extremely high concentration of the active ions in the fiber core. Such fibers allow for the high-gain linear laser cavity to be sufficiently short so that a single longitudinal cavity mode can be isolated with a narrow-band fiber Bragg grating
The active fiber has a circular core with a diameter of 14 μm, which is co-doped with 1% of Er+3 and 8% of Yb+3

Summary

Introduction

High power single-frequency fiber lasers can find applications in such areas as communications, nonlinear optics, interferometry and as the master oscillators in high-power Master-OscillatorPower-Amplifier designs (MOPA) [1]. Two approaches have been exploited to produce high-power single-frequency output directly from a fiber laser.

Results

Conclusion