Extremely Compact High-Power Er3+-Yb3+-Codoped Phosphate Glass Fiber Lasers

Abstract

Extremely compact high-power fiber lasers operating at eye-safe telecom wavelength of 1.5 μm have been achieved by systematic experimental studies. Heavily Er3+-Yb3+-codoped phosphate glasses have been chosen as the host glass for our fibers and 1.5 μm lasers have been realized when pumped with 975 nm laser diodes.The first short-length cladding-pumped fiber laser with watt-level CW output power has been demonstrated by an 11-cm-long doped step-index phosphate fiber. Without active cooling, 1.5 W output power at 1535 nm has been obtained.Thermoelectric cooler has been used for heavily doped phosphate step-index fibers. A dual-end-pumped actively cooled fiber laser has generated more than 11 W CW output power at 1535 nm from an 11.9 cm long active fiber. A fully 3-dimensional thermal analysis has been performed to calculate the internal temperature distribution of the short-length fiber laser and the simulated results have been experimentally verified.Phosphate glass microstructured optical fibers (MOFs) with large active cores have been fabricated. The first demonstrated short phosphate MOF laser has generated > 3 W single-mode CW output power from an 11-cm-long fiber. The impacts of depressed-core-index and annealing upon MOF's modal property have been systematically investigated. Extremely compact high-power fiber laser is demonstrated by a heavily doped MOF laser and > 4.5 W single-mode CW output power is delivered from a 3.5 cm long fiber. Finally, a high-power single-frequency fiber laser is realized by splicing a FBG with a 3.8 cm long MOF, which achieves > 2 W single-frequency output power.