Third-order cascaded Raman shift in all-solid fluorotellurite fiber pumped at 1550 nm.

Abstract

In this Letter, we demonstrate a third-order cascaded Raman shift in an all-solid fluorotellurite fiber pumped by a 1550 nm nanosecond laser. The fluorotellurite glass with a composition of TeO2-BaF2-Y2O3 (TBY) has a usable Raman shift of ∼785 cm-1 and a Raman gain coefficient of ∼1.65 × 10-12 m/W at 1550 nm, which is approximately 25.4 times larger than that of silica glass. By using a 5.38 m fluorotellurite fiber as the Raman gain medium and a 1550 nm nanosecond laser as the pump light, a third-order cascaded Raman shift is obtained via spontaneous cascaded Raman amplification in the fluorotellurite fiber, causing the generation of the first-, second-, and third-order Stokes emissions that peak at 1765, 2049, and 2438 nm, respectively. For an average pump power of ∼491.5 mW, the output power of the generated first-, second-, and third-order Stokes light is approximately 14.1, 67.4, and 31.6 mW, respectively. The corresponding conversion efficiency is approximately 2.87%, 13.70%, and 6.43%, respectively. Our results show that fluorotellurite fibers are promising Raman gain media for constructing cascaded Raman fiber lasers with a wide range of wavelengths.