Thulium-doped fiber lasers have been extensively investigated as the most promising source of efficient laser emission at wavelengths around 2 μm, i. e., in the eye-safer spectral region and in the atmospheric window as well. It allows for wide range of applications including medicine, defense, distance measurement or materials processing. To enhance pump absorption efficiency along the active double-clad fiber, good overlap of the pump light and doped fiber core should be achieved along the fiber length. The overlap can be increased by breaking the circular symmetry of the inner cladding by shaping its cross-section. Further mode-mixing and better pump absorption can be achieved by coiling and twisting of double-clad fibers. In this work we present experimental measurement of 792 nm pump cladding absorption of a series of double-clad thuliumdoped fibers with respect to their bend radius, the inner cladding cross-sectional shape and twist rate. With these fibers, we assembled a set of fiber lasers with different resonator setups and tested their performance. Twisting was introduced to fiber during drawing from an octagonal, CO2 laser-shaped or mechanically grinded preform so that the twist remained frozen in the drawn fiber. We have shown that the fiber twist significantly improves the pump absorption even in the case of straight or coiled fibers with large coil radii. We provide a preliminary comparison of two fiber laser resonators.
The high-power fiber lasers rely on the use of double-clad active fibers with noncircular symmetry of their inner-cladding cross-section. Therefore, the optical fiber preforms had to be shaped before fiber drawing. A new technique of preform-shaping by a CO2 laser is now available along with the conventional mechanical-based grinding. This innovative technique retains the advantages of enabling to produce complex inner-cladding shapes that not easily achievable by a conventional grinding technique. However, one of the drawbacks of the CO2 laser-based preform-shaping is weak of hydroxyl OH-groups reduction during the ablation process. The water is often penetrating into the preform surface via the oxyhydrogen flame during preform manufacturing. The thermophysical nature of the CO2 laser ablation process causes further diffusion of the OH-ions deeper towards the preform center during shaping. The diffused OH-groups in the glass material cause high attenuation at some wavelengths which are associated with the overtones of the fundamental OH absorption peaks. Unfortunately, some of these peaks lay rather close to the commonly used laser pumping wavelengths. This should be considered when designing a double-clad fiber laser as well as when selecting the preform-shaping technique. In this work, we will present a new method of mitigation of the water penetration into the optical fiber preform when a CO2 laser preform-shaping technique is applied. This method includes an optical fiber preform etching procedures prior to the preform laser shaping and to the fiber drawing. The acquired data helps also to predict the thickness of the layer that should be removed from the preform surface. The knowledge of the thickness of the optimal layers is of great benefit for the advanced estimation of the inner-cladding attenuation, an important parameter of double-clad fibers intended for high-power fiber lasers.
We experimentally investigated loss of multimode optical fibers (MMFs) drawn of thermally shaped optical fiber preforms (OFPs). Such preforms are typically used for fabrication of double clad active fibers. The investigation involved undoped shaped MMFs coated with a low refractive index polymer. The fibers were drawn of silica rod, prepared by collapsing a pure silica tube (Heraeus F300, OH content is 0.2 ppm) in the MCVD lathe. Background losses of undoped MMFs with inner cladding of various geometries shaped by CO2 laser were measured via cut-back method. Losses of the shaped MMFs were compared to the loss of the circular and of the mechanically shaped MMF. Constraints, drawbacks and advantages of shaping the fiber preform using the CO2 laser are discussed. Shaping OFPs with CO2 beam provides advantages of quick polishing, smooth surface, and freeform shape. Results show that mechanical polishing technique leads to significant OH content elimination, which is expressed as reduced absorption peaks at wavelengths of 0.945 μm and 1.24 μm, which correspond to the third and second overtone, respectively. The average perimeter length of fibers cross section governs absorption at polymer-glass interface.
We review the results of investigation of a special mode of self-pulsing, longitudinal-mode-instability regime, so-called self-induced laser line sweeping. This description reflects the fact that the self-pulsing (in the form of self-sustained relaxation oscillations) coexists with a spectacular laser line drift with time. It is accompanied by creation of dynamic refractive index gratings along the active fiber in the laser cavity. Such gratings have pitch of less than a micrometer, defined by half of the wavelength of the laser mode responsible for the grating build-up. Although longitudinal mode instabilities in fiber lasers are known for a long time, the associated refractive index gratings were studied just recently. An estimation of reflectivity of the dynamics gratings in self-swept fiber lasers is given using numerical model.
Fiber lasers with fiber Bragg grating (FBG) mirrors inscribed directly into the active fiber, hereinafter referred to as monolithic fiber lasers, are of great interest thanks to simpler resonator design and thanks to elimination of fiber splices between the active fiber and passive fibers with FBGs that could lead to breakdown. In order to build such monolithic fiber laser configuration, different methods for FBG inscription were reported in literature, including phase mask inscription using UV light or fs lasers in deep UV light, visible and IR spectrum, and by point-by-point technique with IR fs radiation, for details see [1, 2] and references herein.
We report to our knowledge first application of monolithic fiber laser with FBGs inscribed by so-called plane-by-plane method using femtosecond laser pulses operating in visible region [3, 4]. We used erbium and ytterbium co-doped double-clad fibre fabricated in-house. The fibre was drawn from preforms manufactured by modified chemical vapour deposition method and solution-doping of erbium and ytterbium ions with phosphorous oxide. Since the inner cladding cross-section of the fibre had a circular shape, a tailored coiling had to be applied in order to improve pump absorption [5, 6]. Indeed, the peak absorption at 976 nm increased from 3.5 dB of the standard coil to 17 dB for a tailored coil of 5 m long fibre sample. The high reflectivity mirror reflects more than 99 % and the reflectance of the low-reflective FBGs varied from 10 % to 50 % in the various samples. The laser characteristics were measured using 976 nm pump laser diode with the pump wavelength stabilized by volume Bragg grating. We report 30 % efficiency of the experimental fibre laser setup. The relatively low laser efficiency can be attributed to non-optimal absorption due to circular cross-section of the inner cladding and to non-optimized erbium-to-ytterbium concentration
We numerically investigated the properties of diffraction gratings designated for fabrication on the facet of an optical fiber. The gratings are intended to be used in high-power fiber lasers as mirrors either with a low or high reflectivity. The modal reflectance of low reflectivity polarizing grating has a value close to 3% for TE mode while it is significantly suppressed for TM mode. Such a grating can be fabricated on laser output fiber facet. The polarizing grating with high modal reflectance is designed as a leaky-mode resonant diffraction grating. The grating can be etched in a thin layer of high index dielectric which is sputtered on fiber facet. We used refractive index of Ta2O5for such a layer. We found that modal reflectance can be close to 0.95 for TE polarization and polarization extinction ratio achieves 18 dB. Rigorous coupled wave analysis was used for fast optimization of grating parameters while aperiodic rigorous coupled wave analysis, Fourier modal method and finite difference time domain method were compared and used to compute modal reflectance of designed gratings.
In this contribution we report and discuss the results of laser characterizations of experimental thulium-doped optical
fibers. These active fibers were fabricated in house and were tested in two laser systems to verify their characteristics.
The first one, a monolithic fiber laser, was of great interest to us due to its potentially lower overall resonator losses,
improved laser lifetime and better robustness. The compact laser cavities with a Bragg gratings inscribed directly into the
active optical fiber differs to the second laser system where the Bragg gratings were inscribed into a passive fiber which
had to be spliced to the active fiber. The tested fibers were manufactured by the modified chemical vapor deposition
method and a solution-doping of thulium ions with Al2O3 or alumina nanoparticles, respectively. We focused on
comparison of laser output powers, slope efficiencies, and laser thresholds for particular thulium-doped fiber in different
laser configurations.
We investigated behaviours of 1D binary diffraction gratings fabricated on optical fiber facets. Only sub-wavelength structures were considered to suppress higher diffraction orders. The aperiodic rigorous coupled wave analysis, the Fourier modal method and the finite-difference time-domain numerical methods were used to compute and optimize the modal reflectance of the investigated structures. Optimized gratings were milled on fiber facets by focused ion beam. One of the gratings was tested in a thulium-doped fiber laser where it acted as a low re ectivity polarizing output mirror. A slope efficiency of the laser and a beam quality parameter were conserved while lasing threshold slightly increased.
High-power Tm-doped fiber lasers are greatly suitable for various applications, such as material processing, medicine, environmental monitoring and topography. In this work we present an all-fiber narrowband CW laser in near fundamental mode operation based on a Tm-doped double-clad active fiber pumped by 793 nm laser diodes with a central wavelength stabilized at 2039 nm by a fiber Bragg grating. The achieved output power is 60 W with a slope efficiency of 46%. The measured beam quality factor is less than 1.4. Further increasing of the output power is possible using various power scaling techniques, for example, coherent combination of several Tm-doped fiber lasers. The developed fiber laser could be employed for welding, cutting and marking of thermoplastics in industry, minimally invasive surgery in medicine or sensors in lidar systems. Future improvements of thulium fiber lasers are possible due to the extremely wide gain-bandwidth of the active medium and the rapid growth of 2-μm fiber components production.
Mid-infrared laser absorption spectroscopy (LAS) is useful for molecular trace gas concentration measurements in gas mixtures. While the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry is still the gold standard in gas analysis, LAS offers several advantages. It takes tens of minutes for a gas mixture to be separated in the capillary column precluding gas chromatography from real-time control of industrial processes, while LAS can measure the concentration of gas species in seconds. LAS can be used in a wide range of applications such as gas quality screening for regulation, metering and custody transfer,1 purging gas pipes to avoid explosions,1 monitoring combustion processes,2 detection and quantification of gas leaks,3 by-products monitoring to provide feedback for the real-time control of processes in petrochemical industry,4 real-time control of inductively coupled plasma etch reactors,5, 6 and medical diagnostics by means of time-resolved volatile organic compound (VOC) analysis in exhaled breath.7 Apart from the concentration, it also permits us to determine the temperature, pressure, velocity and mass flux of the gas under observation. The selectivity and sensitivity of LAS is linked to a very high spectral resolution given by the linewidth of single-frequency lasers. Measurements are performed at reduced pressure where the collisional and Doppler broadenings are balanced. The sensitivity can be increased to ppb and sometimes to ppt ranges by increasing the interaction length in multi-pass gas cells or resonators and also by adopting modulation techniques.8
In this paper we present experimental results of characterization of the experimentally prepared thulium-doped optical fibers in double-clad hexagonal fiber geometry for cladding optical pumping at a wavelength of 793 nanometers. The fiber was fabricated by the modified chemical vapor deposition and solution doping method and coated with polymer with lower refractive index than silica. The fiber was characterized in views of its refractive index profiles, thulium ions concentration, spectral absorptions, fluorescence lifetime, and performance in fiber laser.
In this work we report on the fluorescence lifetime characterization of the experimentally prepared Tm-doped silica
optical fibers with increased quantum conversion efficiency (QE). Optical fibers were drawn from preforms prepared by
conventional solution-doping of thulium and aluminium chlorides and by deposition of dispersed alumina nanoparticles
with thulium chloride. Prepared preforms and optical fibers were characterized by means of thulium and aluminium
concentrations, refractive index profiles, optical spectral attenuations (absorptions) and fluorescence lifetimes. Highly
aluminium-codoped optical fiber prepared from alumina nanoparticles exhibited fluorescence lifetime of about 690 μs,
which is about 40% higher compared to the conventionally prepared Tm-doped silica fiber.
Laser structuring is rapidly developing manufacturing technique for broad spectrum of industrial branches, e.g.
aerospace, power engineering, tool- and mould making, and automotive. It enables to prepare work pieces and products
with very fine micro structures achieving a far better degree of details than conventional structuring techniques like
etching or eroding. However, the state of art in laser structuring shows a crucial deficit. Used systems contain no
metrology setup to detect the shape geometry (depth and length) and contour accuracy during the process. Therefore, an
innovative in-line metrology technique based on low coherence interferometry for laser structuring systems has been
investigated and described in the paper. In this contribution we present our results in the research of wideband and highpower light sources for the proposed low-coherence interferometric measurement system. The system can be
incorporated into a structuring workplace equipped with a Q-switched ytterbium-doped fiber laser at 1064 nm for
material processing. In the paper we focus on two wideband sources for such a measurement system. The first source is
based on a superluminescent diode and the second one is based on an amplified spontaneous emission in a double-clad
ytterbium-doped fiber. An example of results measured with the proposed in-line metrology system is presented.
This paper deals with the preparation of spherical silica whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) microresonators and with their resonance spectra measured in air and in acetone vapors. Spherical microresonators with a diameter ranging from 320 to 360 micrometers have been prepared by heating the tip of a silica fiber by a hydrogen-oxygen burner. Details of this preparation are shown on spherical and spheroidal microresonators. The prepared microspheres were excited by a fiber taper and their resonance spectra were measured and Q factors estimated. Changes in the resonance spectra of the microspheres due to their contact with acetone vapor heated to 55 °C or with liquid acetone have been observed. These changes are explained by interaction of acetone with silica and by temperature changes of the microspheres.
Whispering-Gallery-Mode (WGM) optical microresonators have attracted growing attention because of their big potential for chemical and biological sensing. Recently, optical bottle microresonators have been fabricated from short sections of optical fibers. These double-neck bottle-shaped microresonators have some features distinguishing them from spherical microresonators. They support non-degenerate whispering-gallery modes that exhibit two well-separated spatial regions with enhanced field strength. The free spectral range (FSR) of such microresonators is about one order of magnitude smaller than that of microsphere resonators of equal diameters. It means that these microresonators have much longer optical path-lengths and can be employed for highly sensitive detection.
The paper deals with the preparation and characterization of bottle optical microresonators fabricated from silica optical fibers. A simple 2D numerical modelling has been used to investigate basic spectral characteristics of microresonators with hexagonal cross-sections. Cylindrical bottle microresonators are prepared from optical fiber Corning SMF-28, while microresonators with hexagonal cross-section are prepared from an experimental hexagonal silica fiber. This novel type of bottle microresonators is expected to have much simpler mode structure than cylindrical bottle microresonators. There are compared two methods for the preparation of bottle microresonators in this paper. The first method is based on a combination of controlled local heating and tapering the fiber by the use of carbon dioxide laser Coherent GEM SELECT 50. The second method is based on weak tapering of the silica optical fiber with glass processing unit Vytran GPX-3400.
The paper deals with the preparation and characterization of whispering-gallery-mode silica spherical microresonators
and with effects of liquid acetone, ethanol, and xerogel layers applied onto these microresonators on their resonance
spectra. Microrespheres with diameters ranging from 320 to 360 μm have been prepared by heating a tip of a silica fiber
with a hydrogen-oxygen burner. The microspheres were excited by a fiber taper or a bulk prism and their resonance
spectra were measured. Values of the Q factor from 104 to 106 have been determined from these spectra. In
experiments, it has been found that short contact of microspheres with acetone causes a shift of resonance dips due to
surface effects caused by acetone. A decrease of the Q factor has been observed with a microresonator onto which a
xerogel silica layer was applied by the sol-gel method. A very high decrease of the Q factor has been observed when the
silica microresonator was brought in contact with liquid ethanol.
The paper deals with the preparation and characterization of whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) microresonators. Three
types of materials were used for the preparation of these microresonators, namely silica optical fibers,
polydimethylsiloxane polymer and UV-acrylate polymer. In the case of the silica fibers microspheres were prepared by
heating the fiber tip with a miniburner or CO2 laser. Polymer microresonators were applied onto tips of fiber substrates
when they were dipped into polymer and immediately cured. Microresonators with a diameter ranging from 70 to 1000
μm were prepared.
Transmission properties of the prepared microresonators were investigated in experiments where a microresonator was
excited by a red laser at 660 nm by using evanescent field of a coupling element, namely a glass or silica fiber prism.
The output power from the coupling element was detected. Temporal changes of the output power caused by heating the
microresonators were also measured and explained in terms of the microresonator quality factor.
Bending characteristics of long-period gratings (LPGs) written in fiber with parabolic-index cladding are investigated
experimentally. The fiber has a uniform outer cladding and an inner cladding, where the refractive index decreases
quadratically with radius. A recent theoretical analysis has shown that these LPGs can be highly insensitive to bending.
A very small bend-induced wavelength shift of the attenuation band of only 5 nm was predicted for an LPG bent with a
uniform curvature of 100 m-1. Experiments to prove the predicted bend insensitivity are done with LPGs written with a
CO2 laser at one-side and three-side laser irradiation of the fiber. The LPG is bent in an arrangement, where the curvature
is maximum in the LPG's center and decreases linearly along the bent LPG in both directions. Bend-induced wavelength
shifts of an attenuation band appearing at about 1560 nm and attributed to coupling between the fiber modes LP01 and
LP02, are examined for four rotational orientations of the LPG inscribed at three-side laser irradiation. The largest shift of
0.46 nm is obtained for a maximum curvature (in the middle of the LPG) of 11.6 m-1, (or average curvature of 5.8 nm-1)
corresponding to the largest deflection applied on the LPG in the experiments. The depths of the bands of the above LPG
at the -5.5-dB level are observed to vary by less than 0.3 dB over the whole range of applied curvatures.
Long-period gratings (LPGs) in an optical fiber, which was designed and fabricated for achieving high insensitivity of the inscribed LPGs both to bending and to the external index of refraction, are investigated. The fiber has a double cladding, consisting of a uniform outer cladding and a graded-index inner cladding, where the index of refraction decreases approximately parabolically with radius. This fiber is referred to as the parabolic-index cladding (PIC) fiber. Results obtained in the preparation of preforms and drawing PIC fibers are given. The theoretical analysis, carried out by the mode expansion and beam propagation method, yields field distributions and effective indexes of the fundamental core mode LP01 and several low-order circularly symmetric cladding modes LP0m for several external indexes of refraction. Experiments are done with an LPG with a period of 214 μm inscribed with a CO2 laser in the PIC fiber. In experiments, transmission spectra of the LPG immersed in three liquids with refractive indexes in a relatively wide range around the index of silica (water, silica-index-matching liquid, silicone oil) are measured in a temperature range of 25-67.5°C. From experiments it follows, in agreement with the theoretical analysis, that the spectral positions of the investigated attenuation band at &lgr; ≈ 1550 nm (coupling between the LP01 and LP02 mode), determined at temperatures in the above range, are highly insensitive to the external index of refraction.
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