Dual-Wavelength Erbium-Doped Fibre Ring Laser by Cascading Tunable Bandpass Filter with Bandstop Filter

A novel fibre ring laser is proposed and successfully demonstrated. By cascading a tunable bandpass filter with a bandstop filter to construct the desired narrow dual-transmission-peak spectrum, and employing a segment of unpumped erbium-doped fibre as a saturable absorber, a stable fibre ring laser is achieved at room temperature. The proposed laser can operate in dual-wavelength with the wavelength spacing of 0.48 nm and the extinction ratio more than 50 dB or switch between the two wavelengths by adjusting a polarization controller. The stability is investigated experimentally and explained theoretically.     

Stable Dual-Wavelength Fibre Laser with Bragg Gratings Fabricated in a Polarization-Maintaining Erbium-Doped Fibre

A new polarization-independent duai-wavelength fibre laser by fabricating a uniform FBG and a chirped FBG in a polarization-maintaining erbium-doped fibre （PM-EDF） is proposed and demonstrated. The wavelength spacing is 0.18nm and the optical signal-to-noise ratio is greater than 50dB with pump power of 246mW. Chirped FBG is used to make the reflectivity wavelengths of two PM-FBGs match easier. Since both EDF and FBGs are polarization-maintaining without splices and the two wavelengths are polarization-independent, the maximum amplitude variation and wavelength shifts for both lasing wavelength with 3-min intervals over a period of six hours are less than 0.2 dB and 0.005 nm, respectively, which shows stable dual-wavelength output.     

Realization of an All-Fibre Self-Organization Intra-Cavity Coherent Erbium-Doped Fibre Laser

An intra-cavity coherent coupling Michelson Er-doped fibre （EDF） laser （MCEDFL） is proposed and demonstrated. Characteristics of the MCEDFL are investigated. It is found that the MCEDFL with a polarizer can be coherent combined effectively. By the experiment based on fibre Bragg gratings （FBGs） with different reflectivity, we find that the reflectivity of the FBG play a vital role in improving the performance of the MCEDFL. This outcome adequately shows many favourable features, such as high efficiency, easy operation, and simple all-fibre configuration.     

Multiwavelength Dispersion-Tuned Actively Mode-Locked Erbium-Doped Fibre Ring Laser with Gain Competition Suppression

Multiwavelength dispersion-tuned actively mode-locked erbium-doped fibre ring laser is demonstrated by incorporating a section of highly nonlinear fibre （HNLF） in the laser cavity. The HNLF and the time gate element （modulator） in the fibre laser successfully suppress the gain competition in the erbium-doped fibre, and thus enable multiwavelength operation. Simultaneous generation of 10 GHz pulses up to eight different wavelengths is achieved. Wavelength, spacing and modes number tuning are investigated by changing fibre cavity length, dispersion, and erbium-doped fibre amplifier power, respectively.     

Realization of Stable Narrow Linewidth Dual-Wavelength Lasing in an Erbium-Doped Fibre Laser by Cleaving the Wavelength-Selective Filter Spectrum

We propose and demonstrate a new concept of stable narrow-line-width and close wavelength spacing dualwavelength lasing in an Er-doped fibre ring laser （EDFRL） by cleaving the spectrum with a wavelength-selective component in the EDFRL. A fibre loop mirror （FLM） combining with a polarization controller （PC） acts as the cleaver. The cleaver can produce a fine pectinate spectrum. By adjusting the PC, the fine pectinate spectrum can be so changeable that cleaving the spectrum of a fibre Bragg grating （FBG） into two parts. As a result, we obtain the dual-wavelength fibre lasering with a bandwidth of only 0.03nm and a wavelength spacing of only 0.07nm. Furthermore, the laser can also perform stable switchable single wavelength or stable different-bandwidth dual-wavelength by carefully adjusting the PC at room temperature.     

Broadly Tunable SOA-Based Active Mode-Locked Fibre Ring aser by Forward Injection Optical Pulse

We present a broadly tunable active mode-locked fibre ring laser based on a semiconductor optical amplifier （SOA）, with forward injection optical pulses. The laser can generate pulse sequence with pulsewidth about 12ps and high output power up to 8.56 dBm at 2.5 GHz stably. Incorporated with a wavelength-tunable optical bandpass filter, the pulse laser can operate with a broad wavelength tunable span up to 37nm with almost constant pulsewidth. A detailed experimental analysis is also carried out to investigate the relationship between the power of the internal cavity and the pulsewidth of the output pulse sequence. The experimental configuration of the pulse laser is very simple and easy to setup with no polarization-sensitive components.     

Q-Switched Large-Mode-Area Yb-Doped Fibre Laser Using GaAs as Saturable Absorber

A passive Q-switched large-mode-area Yb-doped fibre laser is demonstrated using a GaAs wafer as the saturable absorber. A high Yb doping concentration double-clad fibre with a core diameter of 30μm and a numerical aperture of 0.07 is used to increase the laser gain volume, permitting greater energy storage and higher output power than conventional fibres. The maximum average output power is 7.2W at 1080nm wavelength, with the shortest pulse duration of 580ns and the highest peak power of 161W when the laser is pumped with a 25W diode laser operating at 976nm. The repetition rate increases with the pump power linearly and the highest repetition rate of 77kHz is obtained in the experiment.     

Continuous-wave Ho:GdVO4 laser pumped by Tm-doped fiber laser with a fiber Bragg grating at room temperature

We reported the Ho:GdVO₄ laser pumped by Tm-doped laser with a fiber Bragg grating. 2.03 W continuous-wave Ho:GdVO₄ laser output power is obtained under 10.5 W incident pump power, with the optical-to-optical conversion efficiency and slope efficiency of 19.3% and 32.3%, respectively, at 7 °C. We can see that, the lower the temperature is, the better the laser output character is. The beam quality factor is M² ∼ 1.29 measured by the traveling knife-edge method.     

Harmonic Mode-Locked Ytterbium-Doped Fibre Ring Laser

We demonstrate a harmonic mode-locked ytterbium-doped fibre ring laser, which consists of a polarization-sensitive isolator, two polarization controllers, two 976nm laser diodes as the pump source and a two-segment ytterbium-doped fibre. Utilizing an additive pulse mode-locked technique based on nonlinear polarization evolution, the ytterbium-doped fibre laser can operate in mode-locked state by adjusting the position of polarization controllers. The cavity fundamental repetition rate is 23.78 MHz. We also observe the second- and third-harmonic mode locking in the normal dispersion region, and their repetition rates are 47.66 MHz and 71.56 MHz, respectively. Over-driving of the saturable absorber in the harmonic mode-locking pulse is analysed and discussed in detail.     

Enhancing Coherent Combining Efficiency via Choosing Appropriate Lasing Wavelength in a Michelson Compound Cavity Based on Two 3 dB Fibre Loop Mirrors and One Fibre Bragg Grating

Enhancing coherent combining efficiency via choosing appropriate lasing wavelength in a Michelson compound cavity based on two 3 dB fibre loop mirrors and one fibre Bragg grating （FBG） has been experimentally demonstrated. The FBG with 4.5% reflectivity is replaced at the cleaved facet with 4% Fresnel reflection. A high coherent combining efficiency of 93.5% is obtained when the FBG with central wavelength at 1559.845nm is introduced into the cavity, while it is only 90.1% combining efficiency with the FBG at central wavelength 1557.830 nm. In comparison with other reports, the proposed compound-cavity laser has the advantage of needless tuning FBG to obtain the coherent condition, and it is facile to ascertain the seemly wavelength lasing for a Michelson compound cavity.     

Multiple-Pulse Operation in Passively Mode-Locked Fibre Laser with Positive Dispersion Cavity

We report the observation of rectangular shape spectrum in passively mode-locked fibre laser with positive dispersion cavity. The spectrum is broad and flat, and 3dB bandwidth can be up to 17.61 nm. Multiple-pulse operation is observed in our laser system. The spectrum width, pulse energy, pulse width and peak power of the mode-locked laser output change with the appearance of multiple-pulse operation.     

Continuous-wave operation of a room-temperature Ho:YAP laser pumped by a Tm:YAP laser

We reported the Ho:YAP laser pumped by the Tm:YAP laser. The Ho:YAP laser maximum output power was 4.91 W when the incident power was 10.1 W with the threshold of 2.63 W. The slope efficiency was 63.7%, corresponding to an optical-to-optical efficiency of 48.6%. The Ho:YAP output wavelength was centered at 2118.2 nm with bandwidth of about 1 nm. We estimate the beam quality to be M² = 1.29.     

Propagation of Single-Mode Fibre Laser Beams through an Optical ABCD System with Circular Aperture at the Fibre Output End

Based on the expansion expression of the fundamental mode of a single-mode fibre in terms of Laguerr-Gauss modes, the propagation of a beam of a weakly guiding fibre laser through an opticM ABCD system with a circular aperture at the fibre end is studied. The results show that there is much difference between the propagation of the laser beam described by the expansion expression and by the Gaussian mode approximation. The depth of focus of the laser beam is longer than that of the Gaussian modes.     

Narrow Linewidth Tm^3＋-Doped Large Core Fiber Laser Based on a Femtosecond Written Fiber Bragg Grating

A diode laser （LD） clad-pumped narrow linewidth all-fiber Tm^3＋-doped fiber laser is reported with a maximal output power of 27W at 1.947μm. By successively splicing an LD pigtail fiber, a single-mode Tm^3＋-doped fiber, and a multi-mode Tm^3＋-doped fiber, the fiber laser has 70pm narrow linewidth output, and a high slope efficiency of nearly 47.5% with respect to the launched pump power. The high reflectivity fiber Bragg gratings, which are directly written into the single-mode Tm^3＋-doped fiber core by the 800nm femtosecond pulsed laser, act as the high reflectivity coupler. The output laser has diffraction-limited beam quality with a factor M^2 of 1.29, when the output laser power is nearly 27W.     

A Single Mode Fibre Laser by Applying Self-Injection Locking with a DFB Structure

We report a novel single-frequency fibre ring laser using self-injection locking with a distributed-feedback （DFB） fibre laser at 1550nm. The operating wavelength is controlled by a saturable absorber and a DFB fibre laser in the ring cavity, the saturable absorber acts as a narrow band-pass filter. In the primary experiment, the laser output exceeds 100mW with the linewidth less than 2kHz. The laser is stable, and no mode-hopping is observed within eight hours. Compared with other cavity designs using spatial hole-burning, our laser shows high controllability.     

A Laser-Diode End-Pumped Nd:YVO4 Slab Laser at 1342nm

A laser-diode end-pumped Nd：YVO4 slab laser with a fiat-concave stable cavity at 1342nm is demonstrated. Under the pumping power of 92 W, a cw laser of output 17.8 W is obtained with the slope efficiency of 25.6%.     

High Efficient Continuous-Wave Ho：Y/kG Laser Pumped by a Diode-pumped Tm：YLF Laser at Room Temperature

DUAN Xiao-Ming, YAO Bao-Quan, ZHANG Yun-Jun, SONG Cheng-Wei, GAO Jing, JU You-Lun, WANG Yue-Zhu（ National Key Laboratory of Tunable Laser Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001）     

Single Mode Er-Doped π-Phase-Shifted Distributed Feedback Fibre Grating Laser

A novel method incorporating the shielded method and the post-processing method has been proposed to fabricate the π-phase-shifted fibre grating. Then an Er-doped π-phase-shifted distributed feedback fibre grating laser has been fabricated using the grating. The laser threshold is 20mW. When pumped with 90mW light at 980nm, the laser gives an output of 1.1mW. Its signal-to-noise ratio is better than 60dB. It is demonstrated that the laser is single mode operation by means of a Fabry--Perot scanning interferometer.     

Mid-IR Dual-Wavelength Difference Frequency Generation Using Fiber Lasers as Pump and Signal Light Sources

A continuous-wave mid-IR difference frequency laser source, which respectively uses an ytterbium-doped fiber laser as the pump source and a multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser cascaded with an erbium-doped fiber amplifier as the signal source, is demonstrated. Our experimental results show that two stable mid-IR radiation lines with a spacing of about 5.4nm may be simultaneously emitted by a suitable setting the pump and signal polarization orientations. The number of the mid-IR radiation lines is limited by the quasi-phase-matching acceptance bandwidth. By changing the PPMgLN temperature the two mid-IR radiation lines may be synchronously tuned in the mid-IR range between 3295 and 3356.3nm.     

High Power Photonic Crystal Fibre Raman Laser

A cw Raman laser based on a 100-m photonic crystal fibre is demonstrated with up to 3.8 W output power at the incident pump power of 12 W, corresponding to an optical-to-optical efficiency of about 31.6%.. The second order Stokes light, which is firstly reported in a cw photonic crystal fibre Raman laser, is obtained at 1183nm with an output power of 1.6 W and a slope efficiency of about 45.7%.