High-Power Raman Soliton Generation at 1.7 μm in All-Fiber Polarization-Maintaining Erbium-Doped Amplifier

An all-fiber polarization maintaining high-power laser system operating at 1.7 μm based on the Ramaninduced soliton self-frequency shifting effect is demonstrated. The entirely fiberized system is built by erbiumdoped oscillator and two-stage amplifiers with polarization maintaining commercial silica fibers and devices, which can provide robust and stable soliton generation. High-power soliton laser with the average power of 0.28 W,the repetition rate of 42.7 MHz, and pulse duration of 515 fs is generated directly from the main amplifier.Our experiment provides a feasible method for high-power all-fiber polarization maintaining femtosecond laser generation working at 1.7 μm.

Impact of amplified spontaneous emission noise on the SRS threshold of high-power fiber amplifiers

Impact of amplified spontaneous emission(ASE)noise on the stimulated Raman scattering(SRS)threshold of highpower fiber amplifiers is demonstrated numerically through a spectral evolution approach.The simulation results confirm that ASE noise in the Raman wavelength band could reduce the SRS threshold of high-power fiber amplifiers significantly.As for ASE noise originated the main amplifier,it becomes stronger and reduces the SRS threshold at shorter operation wavelength below 1052 nm.As for ASE noise originated from the seed laser,it reduces the SRS threshold at different operation wavelength under the condition that the Raman ratio is over-90 dB in the seed laser.The theoretical method and results in this work could provide a well reference to extend the operation wavelength of high-power fiber lasers.

Evolution of modes in double-clad Raman fiber amplifier

Stimulated Raman scattering in a double cladding optical fiber is studied with a continuous wave laser used as a pump source. Under various launch conditions, pump modes are differently excited. Considering the mode coupling effect among the pump modes, the evolution of the power in the Stokes modes is studied. The results show that the scattered waves （the Stokes waves） in the fiber core with 9%tm diameter and 0.14 NA could propagate predominantly in the fundamental mode of the fiber by carefully adjusting the pump light launching conditions.

Amplified Spontaneous Emission in Single Frequency Double-Clad Fiber Power Amplifiers

Amplified spontaneous emission （ASE） in diode laser pumped double-clad fiber power amplifiers is studied experimentally, The dependences of ASE on fiber length and cross section of active core are discussed and the variations of ASE power as the function of pumping and signal power are investigated. There are indications that long fibers with large mode area need stronger input signals to suppress ASE. It is shown that a 150 mW input signal can suppress the ASE by 40 dB in a 4 m large mode area fiber, while to efficiently suppress the ASE in a 10 m fiber, stronger input signal is needed. 12.5 W and 16.1 W single frequency CW output power are obtained from 4 m fiber and 10 m fiber respectively. No stimulated Brillouin scattering （SBS） was observed

980-nm all-fiber mode-locked Yb-doped phosphate fiber oscillator based on semiconductor saturable absorber mirror and its amplifier

A 980-nm semiconductor saturable absorber mirror（SESAM） mode-locked Yb-doped phosphate fiber laser is demonstrated by using an all-fiber linear cavity configuration. Two different kinds of cavity lengths are introduced into the oscillator to obtain a robust and stable mode-locked seed source. When the cavity length is chosen to be 6 m, the oscillator generates an average output power of 3.5 m W and a pulse width of 76.27 ps with a repetition rate of 17.08 MHz. As the cavity length is optimized to short, 4.4-m W maximum output power and 61.15-ps pulse width are produced at a repetition rate of 20.96 MHz. The output spectrum is centered at 980 nm with a narrow spectral bandwidth of 0.13 nm. In the experiment, no undesired amplified spontaneous emission（ASE） nor harmful oscillation around 1030 nm is observed. Moreover,through a two-stage all-fiber-integrated amplifier, an output power of 740 m W is generated with a pulse width of 200 ps.

Nonlinear compression of picosecond chirped pulse from thin-disk amplifier system through a gas-filled hollow-core fiber

We theoretically study the nonlinear compression of a 20-rnJ, 1030-nm picosecond chirped pulse from the thin-disk amplifier in a krypton gas-filled hollow-core fiber. The chirp from the thin-disk amplifier system has little influence on the initial pulse, however, it shows an effect on the nonlinear compression in hollow-core fiber. We use a large diameter hollow waveguide to restrict undesirable nonlinear effects such as ionization; on the other hand, we employ suitable gas pressure and fiber length to promise enough spectral broadening; with 600-μm, 6-bar （1 bar = 105 Pa）, 1.8-m hollow fiber, we obtain 31.5-fs pulse. Moreover, we calculate and discuss the optimal fiber lengths and gas pressures with different initial durations induced by different grating compression angles for reaching a given bandwidth. These results are meaningful for a compression scheme from picoseconds to femtoseconds.

High Power Passive Phase Locking of Four Yb-Doped Fiber Amplifiers by an All-Optical Feedback Loop

We report the passive phase locking of four high power Yb-doped fiber amplifiers with ring cavity.The interference patterns at different output power are observed and the Strehl ratios are measured.The maximum coherent output power of the fiber array is up to 1062 W by multi-stage amplification.The stable beam profiles of various phase relationships are observed by controlling the position of the feedback fiber,in good agreement with the calculated results.By using master oscillator power-amplifier(MOPA)architecture and broadband operation of passively phased systems,higher power scaling with high beam quality appears to be feasible.

Stimulated Brillouin Scattering Enhancement Factor Improvement in a 11.6-GHz-Linewidth 1.5-kW Yb-Doped Fiber Amplifier

The stimulated Brillouin scattering （SBS） threshold enhancement factor in a pure white noise linewidth broad- ening Yb-doped fiber amplifier （YDFA） with a short large mode area fiber is theoretically and experimentally studied. We demonstrate a 1064.08nm, 11.6 GHz finewidth, 1.5 k W output power YDFA with an SBS threshold enhancement of -57 （26 W SBS threshold with single frequency seed）. The output beam is near-diffraction lim- ited with a beam quality factor elM2 = 1.15 and a slope efficiency of up to 87%. No SBS or stimulated Raman scattering effects are observed in the whole power range. Further power sealing is limited by the available pump power in our system.

Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA)-Fiber Ring Laser and Its Application to Stress Sensing

We have developed a novel optical fiber ring laser using a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) as the gain medium, and taking advantage of polarization anisotropy of its gain. The frequency difference of the bi-directional laser is controlled by birefringence which is introduced in the ring laser cavity. The beat frequency generated by combining two counter-propagating oscillations is proportional to the birefringence, the fiber ring laser of the present study is, therefore, applicable to the fiber sensor. The sensing signal is obtained in a frequency domain with the material which causes the retardation change by a physical phenomenon to be measured. For the application to stress sensing, the present laser was investigated with a photoelastic material.

Generation of 47 fs Pulses from an Er:Fiber Amplifier

We demonstrate a self-starting erbium fiber oscillator-amplifier system based on the nonlinear polarization rota- tion mode-locked mechanism. The direct output pulse from the amplifier is 47fs with an average power of 1.22 W and a repetition rate of 50 MHz, corresponding to a pulse energy of 24 nJ. The full width at half-maximum of the spectrum of the output pulses is approximately 93nm at a central wavelength of 1572nm so that the transform- limited pulse duration is as short as 39 fs. Due to the imperfect dispersion compensation, we compress the pulses to 47fs in this experiment.

A Novel and Fast Model of Erbium-doped Fiber Amplifiers

A novel and fast model of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) is presented. By calculating a typical EDFA, numerical results are compared with the results obtained by spectral-solved method. The results of comparison show that such a model can improve the computational speed and preserve the precision. Some characteristics of the EDFA are then analyzed using this model. The results are consistent with those of the experiments.

Amplification Effect on Rayleigh Scattering and SBS in 25 km Distributed Fiber Raman Amplifier

The amplification effect on stimulated Brillouin scattering （SBS） and Rayleigh scattering in the backward pumped G652 fibers Raman amplifier have been researched. The signal source is a tunable narrow spectral bandwidth （〈10 MHz） ECL laser and is pumped by the tunable power 1427.2 nm fiber Raman laser. The Rayleigh scattering lines are amplified by fiber Raman amplifier, and Stokes stimulated Brillouin scattering lines are amplified by fiber Raman amplifier and fiber Brillouin amplifier. The SBS lines total gain is a production of the gain of Raman and the gain of Brillouin amplifier. In experiment, the gain of SBS is about 42 dB and the saturation gain of 25 Ion G652 backward FRA is about 25 dB, so the gain of fiber Brillouin amplifier is about 17 dB.

Thulium-Doped Fiber Amplifier for Blue Light Signal Amplification

Fluoride-based thulium-doped visible light fiber amplifier(TmVLFA), which can be used to amplify the blue light signal for a visible light communication(VLC) system,is theoretically demonstrated for the first time according to the best of our knowledge. The transition rate equations and power propagation equations are solved to predict the dependence of the gain and noise figure on fiber parameters. The numerical results show that with the pump wavelength 1150 nm and pump power 800 mW, 2.75 m long thulium-doped fiber can amplify blue light(480 nm) signal up to 33.3 dB, and the noise figure is in the range from 3.0 to 3.5 dB. The model and numerical results encourage the use of fiber amplifier in VLC system for blue light amplification to extend the range of VLC.

Effect of initial chirp on near-infrared supercontinuum generation by a nanosecond pulse in a nonlinear fiber amplifier

Theoretical and experimental research on the effect of initial chirp on near-infrared supercontinuum generation by a nanosecond pulse in a nonlinear fiber amplifier is carded out. The complex Ginzburg-Landau equation is used to simulate the propagation of the pulse in the fiber amplifier and the results show that pulses with negative initial chirp produce the widest supercontinuum and pulses with positive initial chirp produce the narrowest supercontinuum when the central wavelength of the pump lies in the normal dispersion region of the gain fiber. A self-made line width narrowing system is utilized to control the initial chirp of the nanosecond pump pulse and a four-stage master oscillator power amplifier configuration is adopted to produce a high power near-infrared suppercontinuum. The experimental results are in good agreement with simulations which can provide some guidance on further optimization of the system in future work.

Polarization dependence of gain and amplified spontaneous Brillouin scattering noise analysis for fiber Brillouin amplifier

The polarization dependences of gain and amplified spontaneous Brillouin scattering(ABS) noise for fiber Brillouin amplifier(FBA) are analyzed through theories, simulations, and experiments.Modified vector propagation equations for calculating the gain of the probe signal and the ABS noise are derived and analyzed in the Stokes spaces.In simulations and experiments, we prove that the gain of the probe signal and the ABS noise are strongly dependent on the relative state of polarization(SOP) of the pump and probe signals.The closer the relative SOP of the pump and probe signals is, the more obvious ABS noise suppression effect will be brought by increasing the power of the input probe signal.

Theory of noise in a kilo-Hz cascaded high-energy Yb-doped nanosecond pulsed fiber amplifier

A theoretical analysis of noise in a high-power cascaded fiber amplifier is presented. Unlike the noise theory in low power communication, the noise of a high power system is redefined as the leaked output energy between pulses with coherent beat noise uncounted. This definition is more appropriate for high power usage in which the pulse energy receives more attention than the pulse shape integrity. Then the low power pre-amplifying stages are considered as linear amplification and analyzed by linear theory. In the high-power amplification stages, the inversion is assumed to recover linearly in the time interval between pulses. The time shape of the output pulse is different from that of the input signal because of different gains at the front and back ends of the pulse. Then, a criterion is provided to distinguish the nonlinear and linear amplifications based on the signal-to-noise ratio （SNR） analysis. Then, an experiment that shows that the output SNR actually drops off in nonlinear amplification is performed. The change in the noise factor can be well evaluated by pulse shape distortion.

A 168-W high-power single-frequency amplifier in an all-fiber configuration

We present a high-power, single-frequency, narrow linewidth fiber amplifier based on master oscillator power amplification chains in an all-fiber configuration. The effect of the delivery fiber on the maximum output power is studied. A home-made 1064-nm seed laser with a 20-kHz linewidth is boosted to 129 W, and limited by stimulated Brillouin scattering （SBS） when the delivery fiber is 1.2 m long By shortening the delivery fiber length to 0.7 m, the SBS threshold is increased efficiently and the maximum output power rises to 168 W with an 82.9% power conversion efficiency. The experimental results indicate that the output power can be further raised by shortening the delivery fiber length and increasing the pump power.

Optical Pulse Compression Based on High-doped Erbium Fiber Amplifier and Standard Single-mode Fiber

Proposed is a novel optical pulse compression technique based on high-doped erbium fiber amplifier and standard single-mode fiber(SMF). We used the amplifier with the erbium ion concentration of 6.3×10-3 to amplify a hyperbolic secant pulse from a regeneratively mode-locked fiber laser. The central wavelength, pulsewidth and peak power of the pulse are 1 550 nm, 12.5 ps and 3 mW, respectively. Then the amplified pulse with peak power level corresponding to a higher-order soliton is compressed when it propagates through a 3-km-long single-mode fiber. Studied are the compressed pulses under different pump powers and fiber lengths. The results show that it can get a narrower pulse, and solve the difficulty that pulses at low power can not be compressed directly in the fiber. And the construct is compact.

Influence of mode competition on beam quality of fiber amplifier

Theoretical and experimental studies of the influence of the mode competition on the output beam quality of fiber amplifiers are presented. Rate equations and modal decomposition method are used in the theoretical model. In the experiment, the output beam-quality factor of a fiber amplifier, which is based on a Yb-doped double-clad large mode area fiber as a function of the seed beam quality and the pump power of the amplifier, is measured. The experimental results are consistent with the theoretical analysis.

Design of Si-bipolar Monolithic Main Amplifier IC for Optical Fiber Receivers

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