An output dielectric mirror is deposited on the central part (~15 μm diameter) at the end face of a 1-km graded-index fiber and tested as output mirror of multimode Raman laser with highly-multimode (M2~34) 940-nm LD pumping. In the cavity with highly-reflective input FBG, Raman lasing of Stokes wave at 976 nm starts at the threshold pump power of ~80 W. The output beam quality factor measured near the threshold (~1W at 976 nm) M2~2 confirms mode selective properties of such output mirror. The power scaling capabilities at increased pump power together with a more detailed characterization of the output beam (spatial profile, spectrum and its stability) are performed and the obtained characteristics are compared with those for output coupling based on Fresnel reflection from the mirror-free fiber end face.
This conference presentation was prepared for the Advanced Lasers, High-Power Lasers, and Applications XIII conference at PA22 SPIE/COS Photonics Asia, 2022
It is known that graded-index fibers (GIF) provide efficient Raman conversion of multimode radiation into a Stokes beam with improved beam quality known as Raman beam cleanup effect, whereas in step-index fibers (SIF) this effect is weak. Here we study propagation of low-coherent (~5 nm wide) highly-multimode (M2~30) pump radiation of high power 940-nm laser diodes (LDs) in GIF and SIF of ~100 µm core diameter. We measured pump beam shapes at the output of fibers with different length. It has been shown that the output beam shape is almost independent of the input pump beam shape approaching to rectangular or parabolic profile after propagation in only ten meters of SIF or GIF, respectively. The output beam shape mimics the refractive-index profile in the multimode fiber core due to random mode coupling. This means that Raman gain is nearly the same for all transverse modes in SIF and has maximum gain for the fundamental mode in GIF that is the main reason of strong Raman beam cleanup effect in GIF. We tested Raman lasing in 1-km GIF/SIF with 940-nm LD pumping of up to ~200 W power with a cavity formed by fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs). The output FBG fs-inscribed in GIF/SIF improves the output beam quality due to spatial filtering property, but in GIF the effect is much stronger.
Graded-index fibers enable efficient Raman conversion of multimode radiation into a Stokes beam with improved beam quality offering new approach for high-brightness diode-pumped all-fiber tunable lasers. Here we study an opportunity to broaden the operating wavelength range via cascaded Raman lasing in such scheme. Highly-multimode 940-nm laserdiode radiation is serially converted into the 1st(976nm), 2nd(1019nm) and 3rd(1065 nm) order Stokes beam. At the conversion the beam quality is greatly improved approaching diffraction limit (M2<1.4). Linear and half-open cavities are compared showing that the conversion efficiency is higher for half-open cavity, whereas the threshold is lower for linear cavity that was used for the 3rd -order generation. Generation of 3rd Stokes order is accompanied by unstable pulsations with higher (4th and 5th) orders involved in the lasing with total power of ~4 W, while its beam quality worsens to M2~2.
A random distributed feedback Raman fiber laser (RRFL) based on graded-index (GRIN) fiber with brightness enhancement (BE) is demonstrated. Pumped by temporally stable amplified spontaneous emission source, the output power of 722 W at 1130 nm is achieved thanks to the effective suppression on higher-order Stokes generation. Besides, benefiting from the beam cleanup effect in GRIN fiber, the beam quality factor M2 of the signal laser at maximum output is 4.65 corresponding to the BE factor of 8.9. To the best of our knowledge, this is the record output power of RRFL based on GRIN fiber with BE.
We report on the first demonstration of pulsed regime of Raman laser based on a multimode graded-index fiber directly pumped by a CW multimode laser diode. Proof-of-principle experiments have been performed with a 3.7-km multimode graded-index fiber with 62.5-μm core pumped by 976-nm high-power laser diode and cavity formed by bulk mirror and fiber Bragg grating with intra-cavity acousto-optic modulator providing Q-switching or mode locking. At 27.2-kHz repetition rate corresponding to the laser cavity round-trip frequency (i.e. in mode-locking regime), stable nanosecond pulses with peak power of ~300 W have been observed both at the 1st (1018 nm) and 2nd (1064 nm) Stokes orders. At that, the beam quality of generated pulses is greatly improved as compared to that for the pump diode (M2>20) reaching M2=2 for the 2nd-order Stokes wave.
We report on the transverse mode selection in an all-fiber CW Raman laser based on a multimode graded-index fiber directly pumped by multimode laser diodes. Selection properties of special fiber Bragg gratings inscribed by UV CW or IR femtosecond radiation in the 100-μm core of graded-index fiber are experimentally compared. It is also theoretically explained why the better fundamental mode selection occurs in the femtosecond fiber Bragg grating inscribed in the fiber with lower core diameter. Fibers with core diameter of 62.5, 85 and 100 um are compared in the experiment. With core enlargement, the output power and slope efficiency increase sufficiently (from 47% to 84%) at the expense of slight beam-quality parameter increase (M2 =1.3-3).
We report on the first all-fiber CW Raman laser based on a multimode graded-index fiber directly pumped by multimode laser diodes. A joint action of Raman clean-up effect and mode-selection properties of special fiber Bragg gratings inscribed in the central part of fiber core, results in high-efficiency conversion of a multimode (M2~26) pump at 915 nm into a high-quality output beam at 954 nm. Fibers with core diameter of 62.5, 85 and 100 um are compared. With core enlargement, the output power and slope efficiency increase sufficiently (from 47% to 84%) at the expense of slight beam-quality parameter reduction (M2=1.3-3).
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