Co-pumped Amplifier Research Articles

Spectral evolution and stimulated Brillouin scattering suppression in phase-modulated fiber amplifier

The model combining power balance equations, coupling amplitude equations and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) equation is established to simulate the spectrum evolution and SBS threshold in the amplifier stage. Four typical phase modulation seeds are employed to calculate the SBS spectrum evolution in fiber amplifier. The spectrum evolution results show that the top-hat shaped spectrum seed is optimal to suppress the SBS effect and scale the SBS threshold. The SBS threshold is studied in co-pumped and counter-pumped amplifiers. Simulation results show that counter-pumped amplifier is capable of generating about 2.5 times more output than co-pumped amplifier. The results provide theoretical basis on the design and experiment of continuous wave high power narrow linewidth fiber laser.

Increasing mode instability thresholds of fiber amplifiers by gain saturation

We show by numerical modeling that saturation of the population inversion reduces the stimulated thermal Rayleigh gain relative to the laser gain in large mode area fiber amplifiers. We show how to exploit this effect to raise mode instability thresholds by a substantial factor. We also demonstrate that when suppression of stimulated Brillouin scattering and the population saturation effect are both taken into account, counter-pumped amplifiers have higher mode instability thresholds than co-pumped amplifiers for fully Yb3+ doped cores, and confined doping can further raise the thresholds.

Comprehensive Modeling of Single Frequency Fiber Amplifiers for Mitigating Stimulated Brillouin Scattering

A universal model capable of handling various operating conditions has been developed for designing of high power single frequency fiber amplifiers. The model analyzes the impacts of pump configurations, fiber lengths, and fiber temperatures on amplifier performance. It shows that counter-pumped amplifiers are capable of generating several times more output than co-pumped amplifiers. To fully take their advantages and deliver the laser output, a delivery fiber should be properly designed to avoid unwanted SBS which can significantly undermine the amplifier performance. On the other hand, for applications requiring delivery fiber at relative low power, the co-pumped amplifier can be an alternative since it can use the gain fiber as the delivery fiber and thus eliminate requiring an additional delivery fiber. The model also analyzes possible approaches for suppressing SBS, such as applying additional heating, the use of SBS suppressing fiber, and increasing core diameter. It shows that applying additional heating to a co-pumped amplifier can increase the output by a factor of 1.7. Finally, the model concludes that a single frequency amplifier can achieve multiple kilowatts output by carefully choosing amplifier design and utilizing SBS suppression technique.