ABSTRACT
Femtosecond inscription of fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) in each core of a cladding-pumped seven-core Yb-doped fiber enables efficient (≈70%) 1064-nm lasing in a robust all-fiber scheme with ≈33â W power, nearly the same for uncoupled and coupled cores. However, the output spectrum is quite different: without coupling, seven individual lines corresponding to the in-core FBG reflection spectra sum up into a broad (0.22â nm) total spectrum, whereas the multiline spectrum collapses into a single narrow line at strong coupling. The developed model shows that the coupled-core laser generates coherent superposition of supermodes at the wavelength corresponding to the geometric mean of the individual FBG spectra, whereas the generated laser line broadens, with a power (0.04-0.12â nm) like the single-core mode of a seven-times larger effective area.
ABSTRACT
Specially designed composite heavily Er3+-doped fiber in combination with unique point-by-point inscription technology by femtosecond pulses at 1,026 nm enables formation of distributed-feedback (DFB) laser with ultra-short cavity length of 5.3 mm whose parameters are comparable and even better than those for conventional Er3+-doped fiber DFB lasers having much longer cavity. The composite fiber was fabricated by melting rare-earth doped phosphate glass in silica tube. The ultra-short DFB laser generates single-polarization single-frequency radiation at 1,550 nm with narrow linewidth (3.5 kHz) and 0.5 mW output power at 600 mW 980-nm pumping. The same fiber with conventional CW UV (244 nm) inscription technology using phase mask enables fabrication of 40-mm long DFB laser with > 18 mW output power at 3.3% pump conversion, which is a record efficiency for Er3+-doped fiber DFB lasers. The developed technologies form an advanced platform for Er3+-doped fiber DFB lasers operating around 1.55 µm with excellent output characteristics and unique practical features, in particular, the ultra-short DFB lasers are attractive for sensing applications.
