Polymer optical fibre Bragg gratings based fibre laser

For the first time the fibre laser constructed from a polymer optical fibre Bragg grating is reported. The single frequency laser with the peak power of −5 dBm and signal to noise ratio greater than 45 dB has been achieved. Further examination demonstrates the excellent characteristics of the fibre laser. First, the fibre laser can be easily tuned over 35 nm by the simple axial tension method. Second, the fibre laser has the high strain sensitivity of 1.48 pm/με with the dynamic measurement range as large as 2.37%.     

Characteristics of Er and Er-Yb-Cr doped phosphate microsphere fibre lasers

In this paper both Er and Er-Yb-Cr doped phosphate microspheres have been successfully created through precise melting of the ends of fibre tapers, drawn, respectively, from Er and Er-Yb-Cr doped phosphate glasses. When coupled with a fibre taper, a microsphere fibre laser cavity can thus be configured creating a system pumped by a 980 nm laser diode and using an optical spectrum analyzer to monitor the spectral characteristics of the laser output. The performance and characteristics of the Er and Er-Yb-Cr microsphere lasers thus created are discussed in detail and cross-compared in this paper. Both lasers have shown low-threshold in terms of the pump power and the laser output wavelengths and a close investigation of the system has shown that the output power and laser stability are closely related to the size of the microsphere, the pump power and the microsphere material composition.     

Repetition rate multiplication in figure-eight fibre laser with 3 dB couplers

The operation of a passively modelocked figure-eight laser with all fibre repetition rate multiplier is reported. Thirty two times the fundamental repetition rate is achieved with six conventional 3 dB couplers at a repetition rate of 182 MHz. The repetition rate 2^N times multiplication only requires (N + 1) passive fibre couplers and N fibre delay-lines. This method makes it possible to achieve high multiplication and is inexpensive when compared with conventional methods employing sub-ring cavity or special fibre Bragg grating to control repetition rate.     

Multi-wavelength Fabry-Pérot Brillouin-Erbium fibre laser

Multi-wavelength Brillouin-Erbium fibre laser utilising fibre Fabry-Pérot resonator is presented here. The proposed laser cavity used only a 980 nm laser diode and a coil of Erbium-doped fibre to produce cascaded Brillouin Stokes. The highest number of Stokes up to 43 lines with a spacing of 0.088 nm was obtained experimentally.     

High efficiency, dual-wavelength fibre Raman pump laser for U-band fibre Raman amplifiers

A dual-wavelength, continuous wave, high efficiency fibre Raman ring laser for pumping U-band (1625–1675 nm) fibre Raman amplifiers is demonstrated. Two fibre Bragg gratings were used as wavelength-selective elements resulting in lasing lines at 1529.7 and 1558.7 nm with respective maximum powers of 209.0 and 390.9 mW. A simple U-band Raman amplifier was constructed to test the dual-wavelength pump laser and on:off gain with a peak of 7.3 dB and a 3-dB bandwidth of 73 nm was obtained.     

An injection-locked erbium-doped fibre ring laser

The effects of injection-locked on an erbium-doped fibre laser based on a ring configuration have been demonstrated. A comparison between experimental results and theoretical prediction in the locking range is made with consistent results in a small wavelength range of about 15 nm. Frequency stabilisation was obtained by applying this approach, ensuring stable output power of the fibre laser system.     

A 980 nm Yb-doped single-mode fibre laser with 946 nm Nd:YAG laser as pump source

Based on rate equations,this paper gives expressions of the output power,the pump power threshold,the slope efficiency,the fibre optimal length and the laser gain of a quasi-three-level Yb-doped fibre laser.The gain relationship between quasi-three-level system and four-level system is also given,which provides a theoretical basis for suppressing the four-level transmissions.In the experiment,we adopt the backward pumping configuration and use a linear cavity.The Yb-doped fibre laser has an output power of 372 mW of single-mode laser emission at 980 nm with a slope efficiency of 21.2% when the fibre length is 29.5 cm close to an optimal fibre length in theory.The experimental results accord well with the theoretical analyses.     

Efficient Tm, Ho-co-doped silica fibre laser diode pumped at 1150 nm

High power and highly efficient operation of a Tm³⁺, Ho³⁺-doped silica fibre laser that is pumped with diode lasers operating at 1150 nm is demonstrated. Internal slope efficiencies approaching the Stokes limit were produced and the maximum output power was 2.9 W. High power diode lasers operating at 1150 nm are valuable pump sources for a range of fibre lasers offering output in the shortwave infrared spectrum.     

Raman oscillation with intracavity pumping of a fibre laser

We introduce the concept of cascaded resonant Raman pumping of fibre lasers. The pump scheme utilises the relatively large intracavity Stokes field that is generated within a Raman fibre laser to excite a lanthanide ion that is doped within the core of the fibre providing the Raman gain. In order to illustrate the general characteristics of the pump method and, to establish the design parameters necessary for the realisation of the pump scheme, calculations from a theoretical model that is used to simulate the generation of laser output from a fibre laser that is resonantly pumped with first Stokes radiation is presented. Specifically, the 2.1 μm output from a Ho³⁺-doped silica fibre laser that is pumped with 1.15 μm first Stokes radiation is calculated with the use of a relatively simple numerical model. For a launched pump power of 20 W at 1.07 μm, a fibre laser output of 3 W is predicted for a nominal intrinsic loss of 1.5 dB/km at 2.1 μm, however, this low value of the intrinsic loss at 2.1 μm can be significantly relaxed when the length of the Ho³⁺-doped silica fibre laser resonator is made considerably shorter than the Stokes resonator.     

High efficiency and low threshold diode-end-pumped blue-ray laser at 457 nm wavelength with straight type cavity

Based on the analysis of laser threshold of quasi-three-level laser system and the parameters optimization of resonant cavity, a compact setup of 457 nm blue-ray laser system is designed, and the laser operation at 914 nm and its second harmonic at 457 nm was obtained by intracavity frequency doubling with LBO nonlinear crystal. At an incident pump power of 24.3 W, the maximum output power at 457 nm is 2.34 W the optical-to-optical conversion efficiency is greater than 9.74%, and the fluctuation of the blue output power is less than 3.01%, besides, laser threshold of this laser system is 3.7 W which is the lowest at present.     

Development of multi-wavelength microsphere fibre laser system for potential sensor applications

A multi-wavelength microsphere laser system, using a chirped fibre Bragg grating and a microsphere resonator as wavelength-selective elements and a high dopant erbium doped fibre as the gain material, has been successfully demonstrated. The multi-wavelength generation of the laser system arises from both the microsphere whispering gallery mode selection and from the additional Raman scattering inside the microsphere cavity when the erbium laser is operating at resonance with the whispering gallery modes. Through an appropriate design and fabrication of a microsphere and of a fibre taper, a selective multi-wavelength fibre laser has been realized when the pump power is above threshold required. The laser output lines created have shown much narrower linewidths than those from conventional fibre lasers and these characteristics are particularly suitable for the range of sensor applications envisaged in the work.     

Dual-wavelength high-power Yb-doped double-clad fiber laser based on a few-mode fiber Bragg grating

We report a high-power dual-wavelength Yb-doped double-clad fiber laser based on a few-mode fiber Bragg grating (FMFBG). The FMFBG was fabricated by using a piece of fiber in a length of fiber with a cutoff wavelength of 1225 nm, which supported two modes at 1060 nm. The laser was pumped by a fiber pigtailed laser diode working at 915 nm. Single-wavelength, dual-wavelength and triple-wavelength laser oscillations were observed when the fiber laser operated under different low pump powers. However, stable dual-wavelength operation was achieved at higher pump power of 3.9 W and remained unchanged until the output power reached 5.67 W under the maximum available pump power of 10.7 W. The laser wavelengths were centered at 1059.12 and 1060.80 nm with a full-width at half-maximum of 37 and 43 pm, respectively. The signal-to-noise-ratio was greater than 50 dB and the beam quality factor (M²) was about 1.9.     

Multi-wavelength generation of L-band brillouin/erbium fibre laser

In this paper, the operation of the Brillouin/erbium fibre laser (BEFL) in the long wavelength band (L-band or 1565–1625 nm) is experimentally demonstrated. The Stokes frequency is shifted 10 GHz from its Brillouin pump (BP) from 1598 to 1612 nm for the single wavelength BEFL. Multiple wavelength generation in the BEFL is realised by adding two 3-dB couplers, which are joined in a reverse-S arrangement to take a portion of the generated BEFL signal and re-inject it into the single-mode fibre (SMF) to seed a cascaded BEFL line in the same direction as the first BEFL line. Twenty lines including the anti-Stokes are obtained with a maximum BP and 980-nm pump power of 8.8 and 92 mW, respectively. The L-band BEFL has the potential to be used in future wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) communication system.     

Optimization of erbium-doped fiber MOPA laser

An erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) constructed in a master oscillator and power amplifier (MOPA) configuration is analyzed. The pump powers for the fiber cavity laser and the booster amplifier stages are managed properly to achieve maximal pump conversion efficiency. Our design achieves a pump conversion efficiency of 91.4%, corresponding to a quantum efficiency of 96.6%, for a 1565.8 nm MOPA laser pumped by a total power of 300 mW at 1480 nm. The optimized MOPA laser shows a 25% enhancement in the pump conversion efficiency, compared to a non-MOPA fiber laser. A side lobe suppression ratio of 48 dB for the optimized MOPA laser is observed.     

LD end-pumped intracavity frequency doubled Yb:YAG laser

A laser diode end-pumped 10 at.% doped Yb:YAG microchip crystal intracavity frequency doubled all solid-stated green laser is reported in this paper. Using one plano-concave resonator, with the pump power of 1.2 W, 44.2 mW TEM₀₀ continuous wave (CW) laser at 525 nm was obtained, the optical conversion efficiency was about 3.7%. When a Cr:YAG crystal with initial transmission of 95.5% inserted in the resonator, the maximum output power of 6.4 mW, pulse duration width of 49.1 ns, pulse repetition rate of 2.45 kHz, and peak power of 53.1 W at 515 nm were achieved when the pump power was 1.2 W. The wavelength changed from 525 nm to 515 nm and the threshold was only 725 mW.     

A high power hybrid mid-IR laser source

An efficient hybrid mid-IR laser system comprising a thulium fibre laser, Ho:YAG solid state laser and a zinc germanium phosphide optical parametric oscillator is presented. A 790 nm diode pumped 1908 nm thulium fibre laser operating at 30 W pumps an RTP q-switched Ho:YAG laser emitting 17 W at 40 kHz and 2090 nm. The zinc germanium phosphide optical parametric oscillator efficiently converts this into the 3-5 μm region producing 10.1 W with 59% optical conversion efficiency and an M² = 1.5.     

Low threshold, actively Q-switched Nd:YVO4 self-Raman laser and frequency doubled 588 nm yellow laser

We reported an actively Q-switched, intracavity Nd³⁺:YVO₄ self-Raman laser at 1176 nm with low threshold and high efficiency. From the extracavity frequency doubling by use of LBO nonlinear crystal, over 3.5 mW, 588 nm yellow laser is achieved. The maximum Raman laser output at is 182 mW with 1.8 W incident pump power. The threshold is only 370 mW at a pulse repetition frequency of 5 kHz. The optical conversion efficiency from incident to the Raman laser is 10%, and 1.9% from Raman laser to the yellow.     

Transition state to mode locking in a passively mode-locked erbium-doped fibre ring laser

The transition state between the continuous wave region and the mode-locked region in a passively mode-locked erbium-doped fibre ring laser has been experimentally observed by utilizing the nonlinear polarization rotation technique.When the pump power reaches the mode-locked threshold,the metastable pulse train with a tunable repetition rate is obtained in the transition from the continuous wave state to the passive mode-locked state via proper adjustment of the polarization controller.A simple model has been established to explain the experimental observation.     

High power tandem pumping fibre amplifier

We demonstrate a high efficiency 1083 nm fibre amplifier tandem pumped by a 1030 nm fibre laser. The 1030 nm fibre laser is coupled into a 25 m long single clad ytterbium doped fibre via a high power wave division multiplexer to core pump the 1083 nm signal laser. An output power of 4.5 W and a power conversion efficiency of 76.6% are achieved without power-roll. The performance of the amplifier can be improved by optimizing the gain fibre length.     

Photonic crystal fibre Brillouin laser based on Bragg grating Fabry-Perot cavity

A photonic crystal fibre Brillouin laser based on fibre Bragg grating Fabr-Perot cavity is presented. A highly nonlinear photonic crystal fibre 25 m in length is used as Brillouin gain medium and fibre Bragg grating Fabry-Perot cavity is chosen in order to enhance the laser conversion efficiency and suppress the higher-order Stokes waves. The laser reaches the threshold at input power of 35 mW, and the experimental laser conversion efficiency achieves 18% of the input power of 140 mW and does not show higher-order Stokes waves. A photonic crystal fibre Brillouin laser with shorter fibre length and lower threshold is experimentally realized.