Passive compensation of the thermal drift of magnetostriction based Q-switched fiber lasers

The authors propose and demonstrate a method to compensate the thermal drift of magnetostriction based Q-switched fiber lasers, which is caused by the eddy currents induced in the Terfenol-D magnetostrictive actuators. The consequent wavelength detuning between the fiber gratings of the laser is passively compensated by the use of Monel 400 as thermal actuator of the non-modulated grating. A highly stable pulsed signal is achieved in the range of 1 Hz-5 kHz, with a wavelength detuning between gratings maintained below 10 pm. Furthermore, an optimization of the use of the pump power is proposed, utilizing part of it for simultaneously pumping a fiber optic based amplification stage.