Cladding-pumped Fiber Research Articles

Coherent instabilities in thulium-based fiber amplifiers induced by laser frequency modulation

Frequency modulation of narrow-linewidth lasers can cause coherent backscattering in cladding-pumped fiber amplifiers. This detrimental effect can be observed in Tm-based fiber amplifiers and can be an additional limitation for power scaling applications. We investigate such instabilities in Tm- and Tm/Ho-doped fiber amplifiers for a wide range of design parameters (active fiber length, pumping scheme, dopant type) and operation regimes (laser frequency tuning rate, amplifier gain). For each amplifier configuration, the backward-propagating (BP) signal is found to peak at a specific laser frequency tuning rate, with an amplitude and a frequency that increase with increasing amplifier gain and fiber length.

Nanoparticle doping as a way to enhance holmium fiber lasers efficiency

Highly-doped holmium fibers have been prepared using modified chemical vapor deposition in combination with nanoparticle-doping method. Within a series of various Al2O3 and Ho3+ concentrations, relations between fibers composition and their fluorescence and laser parameters have been studied. Al/Ho molar ratio equal to at least 50 was found to be the key factor for fibers with outstanding parameters. Fibers with slope efficiency above 80%, laser threshold below 100 mW and fluorescence lifetime up to 1.6 ms have been prepared. Thanks to high Al2O3 concentrations, obtained through nanoparticle doping, we were able to achieve high-performance fibers in a wide range of Ho3+ concentrations. An output power of 19 W with 81% slope efficiency was reached using fiber with almost 4000 ppm of Ho3+ and 10 mol.% of Al2O3. This result is encouraging for highly efficient high-power cladding-pumped holmium fiber lasers, and studied relations between fibers composition and their laser parameters will be used in the designing of such laser sources.

Watt-level cladding-pumped bismuth-doped fiber laser operating near 1.31 [formula omitted]m

We report, to the best of our knowledge, the first CW bismuth-doped fiber laser operating at around 1.31 μm with an output power of >1 W utilizing a cladding-pumping configuration with multimode semiconductor laser diodes emitting at a wavelength of 793 nm. The Bi-doped fiber (BDF) serving as an active medium of the laser was based on a pedestal-index design, where P2O5−SiO2 glass core surrounded by P-doped cladding. The BDF construction offers advanced gain characteristics and an increased mode size (∼13 μm). The fiber preform was fabricated by the conventional modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD) method combined with all gas-phase doping technique. The BDF with low-index polymer coating provided sufficient cladding peak absorption at 750 nm belonging to bismuth active centers associated with phosphorus atoms (BACs-P) that allowed to develop a continuous-wave laser with a linear cavity configuration and enable a maximum slope efficiency of ∼ 4% with respect to the absorbed pump power. In addition, near-field spatial intensity distribution of optical beam has good quality (M2<1.13) and close to Gaussian mode profile in x and y directions. The perspectives for optimization of BDF design and laser system configurations based on such fibers for further power scaling are discussed.

High power cladding-pumped low quantum defect Raman fiber amplifier

Heat generated by the quantum defect (QD) in optically pumped lasers can result in detrimental effects such as mode instability, frequency noise, and even catastrophic damage. Previously, we demonstrated that boson-peak-based Raman fiber lasers have great potential in low QD laser generation. But their power scalability and heat load characteristics have yet to be investigated. Here, we demonstrate a boson-peak-based Raman fiber amplifier (RFA) with 815 W output power and a QD of 1.3%. The low heat generation characteristics of this low QD RFA are demonstrated. Both experimental and simulation results show that at this power level, the heat load of the low QD RFA is significantly lower than that of the conventional RFA with a QD of 4.8%. Thanks to its low heat generation characteristics, the proposed phosphosilicate-fiber-based low QD RFA provides an effective solution for the intractable thermal issue in optically pumped lasers, which is of significance in reducing the laser’s noise, improving the laser’s stability and safety, and solving the challenge of heat removing.

Cladding-pumped laser and amplifier for E- and S-bands based on multimode bismuth-doped graded-index fibers: toward "watt-level" output power.

In this Letter, we investigated the potential scalability of output power of a cladding-pumped laser and a power amplifier (booster) based on a multimode Bi-doped fiber (BDF) using the mode-selection approach. We fabricated the multimode double-clad graded-index (GRIN) fiber with a confined Bi-doped germanosilicate glass core with a diameter of ≈30 and ≈60 µm. Using femtosecond (fs) inscription technology with high spatial resolution, Bragg gratings of a special transverse structure allowing the selection of low-order modes were written into the core of BDFs. The operation features of the cladding-pumped multimode bismuth-doped GRIN fiber lasers with the inscribed Bragg gratings with various reflection coefficients were investigated. In addition, the behavior of the output power and the beam quality (M2 parameter) of the optical radiation of the developed devices was studied. The CW laser and booster operating at nearly 1.45 µm with maximum output powers of ≈0.8 and ≈1 W, respectively, based on the 60-µm-core BDF under pumping by multimode laser diodes at 808 nm were developed, which are, to the best of our knowledge, the most powerful cladding-pumped BDF devices to date. Near single-mode lasing (M2 <1.3) is demonstrated for a 30-µm-core fiber. The experimental data open new possibilities to achieve higher powers in cladding-pumped BDF sources, which are more cost-effective compared to core-pumped counterparts.

M-type refractive index profile erbium-doped fiber for high-efficiency multicore EDFA.

Cladding-pumped multicore erbium-doped fiber is an important element for future spatial division multiplexing (SDM) amplification. We propose an M-type erbium-doped multicore fiber to achieve high-efficiency SDM amplification. The performance of cladding-pumped erbium-doped fiber with a central refractive index depression has been investigated, and the M-type fiber has better amplification performance than conventional fibers by reducing the signal mode overlap with the doped region. The experiment results show that the M-type 4-core erbium-doped fiber has a gain improvement of 2.8 dB compared with conventional 4-core fiber. The pump conversion efficiency (PCE) has been enhanced from 4.47% to 8.01%. For a 7.0 W pump power at 976 nm, the M-type fiber exhibits an average gain of 20.0 dB and an average noise fiber of 6.8 dB at the L-band. The core-to-core gain variation is less than 1.6 dB.

High power tunable Raman fiber laser at 1.2 μm waveband

Development of a high power fiber laser at special waveband, which is difficult to achieve by conventional rare-earth-doped fibers, is a significant challenge. One of the most common methods for achieving lasing at special wavelength is Raman conversion. Phosphorus-doped fiber (PDF), due to the phosphorus-related large frequency shift Raman peak at 40 THz, is a great choice for large frequency shift Raman conversion. Here, by adopting 150 m large mode area triple-clad PDF as Raman gain medium, and a novel wavelength-selective feedback mechanism to suppress the silica-related Raman emission, we build a high power cladding-pumped Raman fiber laser at 1.2 μm waveband. A Raman signal with power up to 735.8 W at 1252.7 nm is obtained. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest output power ever reported for fiber lasers at 1.2 μm waveband. Moreover, by tuning the wavelength of the pump source, a tunable Raman output of more than 450 W over a wavelength range of 1240.6–1252.7 nm is demonstrated. This work proves PDF’s advantage in high power large frequency shift Raman conversion with a cladding pump scheme, thus providing a good solution for a high power laser source at special waveband.Graphical

Cladding-pumped Coupled 12-core Fiber Amplifier for Energy-efficient SDM Transmission

Cladding-pumped Coupled 12-core Fiber Amplifier for Energy-efficient SDM Transmission

20 kW Laser Output Based on Homemade (1+1) Distributed Side-Coupled Cladding-Pumped Fiber

20 kW Laser Output Based on Homemade (1+1) Distributed Side-Coupled Cladding-Pumped Fiber

Spectrum collapse in a 7-core Yb-doped fiber laser with an array of fs-inscribed fiber Bragg gratings.

Femtosecond inscription of fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) in each core of a cladding-pumped seven-core Yb-doped fiber enables efficient (≈70%) 1064-nm lasing in a robust all-fiber scheme with ≈33 W power, nearly the same for uncoupled and coupled cores. However, the output spectrum is quite different: without coupling, seven individual lines corresponding to the in-core FBG reflection spectra sum up into a broad (0.22 nm) total spectrum, whereas the multiline spectrum collapses into a single narrow line at strong coupling. The developed model shows that the coupled-core laser generates coherent superposition of supermodes at the wavelength corresponding to the geometric mean of the individual FBG spectra, whereas the generated laser line broadens, with a power (0.04-0.12 nm) like the single-core mode of a seven-times larger effective area.

Optimization criteria and design of few-mode Erbium-doped fibers for cladding-pumped amplifiers.

We propose a novel optimization method that combines two design criteria to reduce the differential modal gain (DMG) in few-mode cladding-pumped erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (FM-EDFAs). In addition to the standard criterion that considers the mode intensity and dopant profile overlap, we introduce a second criterion that ensures that all doped regions have the same saturation behavior. With these two criteria, we define a figure-of-merit (FOM) that allows the design of FM-EDFAs with low DMG without high computational cost. We illustrate this method with the design of six-mode erbium-doped fibers (EDFs) for amplification over the C-Band targeting designs that are compatible with standard fabrication processes. The fibers have either a step-index or a staircase refractive index profile (RIP), with two ring-shaped erbium-doped regions in the core. With a staircase RIP, a fiber length of 29 m and 20 W of pump power injected in the cladding, our best design leads to a minimum gain of 22.6 dB while maintaining a DMGmax under 0.18 dB. We further show that the FOM optimization achieves a robust design with low DMG over a wide range of variations in signal power, pump power and fiber length.

Output Power Saturation Effect in Cladding-Pumped Bismuth-Doped Fiber Lasers

In this article, output power characteristics of cladding-pumped lasers based on bismuth-doped phospho- and germanosilicate core glass fibers were thoroughly studied and analyzed. The developed lasers are capable of providing the output power of several hundred milliwatts with the slope efficiency close to 1%. The output power saturation for the Bi-doped germanosilicate fiber laser and absence of the saturation regime for the Bi-doped phosphosilicate fiber one was found. This effect is explained by a relatively long relaxation time of bismuth active centers (BACs), namely a non-radiative transition from the higher-lying pump level to the upper laser (metastable) level in the corresponding energy levels diagram. The experimentally obtained data are in good agreement with the results of numerical simulation. In addition, it was investigated that the relaxation time of the BACs from the higher-lying level can have a significant impact on the laser efficiency and the achieved output power. The consequences caused by the saturation effect is possible to overcome with dual-wavelength pumping (combining cladding-pumping at 808-nm wavelength and core-pumping at a wavelength in the range of 1930 – 2040 nm), which provides both the BACs excitation and the stimulated relaxation of BACs from the excited (pump) state to the upper laser level. Using this approach the output power of the Bi-doped fiber laser was increased by almost two times.

Cladding-Pumped Bismuth-Doped Fiber Laser Emitting in the Wavelength Range 1.3–1.4 μm

Cladding-Pumped Bismuth-Doped Fiber Laser Emitting in the Wavelength Range 1.3–1.4 μm

Fibre Optical Coupler Simulation by Comsol Multiphysics Software

Abstract The paper presents a simulation model developed for a special optical coupler intended for coupling radiation from signal and pump sources used for the realization of cladding-pumped doped fibre amplifiers. The model is developed in COMSOL Multiphysics and used to assess the pumping efficiency for different side pumping angles and different numbers of electromagnetic modes. The obtained results show that the highest pumping efficiency, above 75 %, is achieved for 5–14 modes when two fibres representing the pump source and the signal source form a 10-degree angle between their central axes. The search for the optimal number of modes corresponds to the development trend in optical coupler technology where the multimode pumping by light-emitting diode (LED) replaces the classical scheme with a single-mode pumping by a laser diode (LD).

Femtosecond inscription of large-area fiber Bragg gratings for high-power cladding pump reflection.

A new, to the best of our knowledge, method for inscribing fiber Bragg gratings inside a fiber's cladding based on the motorized rotation of the fiber is reported. By minimizing the aberrations induced by the fiber curvature on the femtosecond writing beam, this technique based on a phase mask allows to cover large transverse areas of a standard high-power fiber's cladding. With this approach, a first-order Bragg grating was inscribed in the pure-silica inner cladding of a 20/400-µm fiber. It was then implemented as a pump reflector at the end of a 36-m-long Yb-doped fiber laser reaching 600 W of output power, confirming the power handling capabilities of such a component. Comparison of the laser performances with and without the pump reflector showcases its great potential for increasing pump absorption inside cladding-pumped fiber lasers, which paves the way for significantly reducing their active fiber length.

High-efficiency cladding-pumped 4-core erbium-doped fiber with a pedestal for space division multiplexing amplification.

A cladding-pumped 4-core erbium-doped fiber (4C-EDF) with a pedestal structure has been firstly, to the best of our knowledge, proposed and fabricated for space division multiplexing (SDM) amplification. The numerical simulation shows that the index-raised pedestal around the fiber core can improve power conversion efficiency (PCE) by enhancing pump power usage. Compared with conventional 4C-EDF, the 4C-EDF with a pedestal has a gain improvement of 4.5 dB and a PCE enhancement of 91.8%, according to the experimental results (pedestal fiber: 9.55%, conventional fiber: 4.98%). For a 6 dBm total input signal power at L-band and a 7.8 W pump power at 976 nm, the pedestal 4C-EDF shows an average gain of 25 dB and an average noise figure (NF) of 6.5 dB over all cores in the wavelength range of 1570.41 nm to 1610.87 nm. The core-to-core gain variation is less than 2 dB.

Optimized few-mode EDFA of applicability for variable mode groups with an extended doping region and a PSO algorithm

We employ particle swarm optimization to present a cladding-pumped few-mode erbium-doped fiber amplifier (FM-EDFA) with an extended erbium-doped distribution over the core. By enlarging the radius of the doping region to improve the gain of high-order modes, the differential modal gain (DMG) can be minimized. The proposed FM-EDFA can provide average gain of 21.7 dB and DMG of less than 0.61 dB across the C-band (1530–1565 nm) for seven-mode groups. In addition, the value of the optimal doping radius has been investigated for different numbers of mode groups, which will gradually increase with the number of mode groups. Finally, simulation results indicate acceptable applicability for four- to six-mode groups even using the proposed design.

Temperature characteristic of a gain fiber core in distributed side-coupled cladding-pumped fiber amplifiers with different pump schemes

In this paper, we study the temperature characteristic of a gain fiber core in distributed side-coupled cladding-pumped (DSCCP) fiber amplifiers by optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first temperature distribution measurement of a fiber core in DSCCP fiber lasers. The temperature distributions are also firstly measured among forward, backward, and bidirectional pump schemes. In addition, the bidirectional pump scheme has lower temperature distribution than unidirectional pump schemes. The experimental fiber core temperature is in according with the numerical simulation, which was once introduced for the temperature study of DSCCP fiber amplifiers. By experimental measurement and theoretical modeling, it is found that the maximum core temperature is several tens of centimeters away from the injected end of the DSCCP fiber, such that it will distribute the heat load along the longitudinal direction and reduce the maximum thermal load with better thermal management advantages than ordinary double cladding fiber (DCF).

Large area Bragg grating for pump recycling in cladding-pumped multicore erbium-doped fiber amplifiers.

We demonstrate for the first time that a Bragg grating can be written over a large area inside the cladding of a multicore erbium-doped fiber amplifier to increase the power conversion efficiency (PCE) by recycling the output pump power. Our results indicate that a Bragg grating covering ∼25% of the cladding area allows us to recycle 19% of the output pump power which leads to a relative increase of the PCE by 16% for an input pump power of 10.6 W in the specific case of an eight-core erbium-doped fiber with a length of 20.3 m and one core loaded with an input signal power of 1.5 dBm.

Multicore Cladding-Pumped Fiber Amplifier With Annular Erbium Doping for Low Gain Compression

We report the characterization of a cladding-pumped multicore fiber with annular erbium doping for low gain compression over the C-band (1528.8 nm to 1563.9 nm). The fiber aims to minimize saturation effects by placing the erbium doping in the cladding where the signal intensity is lower. The challenge of ensuring adequate erbium ion solubility in the cladding, without unduly raising its refractive index, was answered by using aluminophosphosilicate for the doped region. Before assembling the eight-core amplifier with fan-in and fan-out, we needed to determine the optimum fiber length to meet the gain compression target when the eight cores are loaded, for a given pump power injected in the cladding. We thus performed a thorough experimental characterization of a single core. This allowed the determination of all the relevant fiber parameters needed to do numerical simulations and predict the multicore fiber amplifier performance under the fully loaded scenario. For the first time, these numerical results are compared to the experimental results of a fully loaded multicore amplifier with cladding pumping and erbium doping in the cladding. We discuss the amplifier performance in terms of gain compression when the input power signal is varied, as would be the case in dynamic optical networks. We also examine the core-to-core gain variations and the sensitivity of the design to fabrication variations. Results show that significant reduction in gain compression of multicore cladding-pump amplifiers can be achieved with the proposed annular doping design in the cladding, although improvement in the fabrication uniformity of the core will be required for practical applications. Lastly, we discuss how this erbium doped fiber design can also lead to improved power conversion efficiency (PCE) in cladding-pumped amplifiers.