Preparation and characterization of highly thulium- and alumina-doped optical fibers for single-frequency fiber lasers

Pavel Honzatko (1) , Anirban Dhar (1) , Ivan Kasik (1) , Ondrej Podrazky (1) , Vlastimil Matejec (1) , Pavel Peterka (1) , Wilfried Blanc (2) , Bernard Dussardier (2)

1 UFE / CAS - Institute of Photonics and Electronics of the Czech Academy of Sciences
2 LPMC - Laboratoire de physique de la matière condensée

Thulium-doped fibers suitable for core-pumped single-frequency lasers were fabricated by the modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD) method. Refractive index profile, doping profile and spectral absorption was measured. High doping concentration of thulium ions should be achieved to allow for high absorption of light at a pump wavelength while the thulium ions clustering should be avoided to prevent the cooperative upconversion and quenching processes. The fabricated fibers featured pump absorption up to 70dB/m at a pump wavelength of 1611nm. The single-frequency master oscillator with a resonator composed of a pair of fiber Bragg gratings and a thulium-doped fiber was demonstrated with predominantly single ended operation. We achieved a slope efficiency of 22\% and a threshold of 22mW at a lasing wavelength of 1944nm.

Mots clés: thulium-doped fibers; thulium-doped fiber lasers; single-frequency master oscillators Absorption; Chemical vapor deposition; Doping; Fiber Bragg gratings; Fiber lasers; Ions; Lasers; Optical fibers; Oscillators; Refractive index

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]

Pavel Honzatko, Anirban Dhar, Ivan Kasik, Ondrej Podrazky, Vlastimil Matejec, et al.. Preparation and characterization of highly thulium- and alumina-doped optical fibers for single-frequency fiber lasers. 7th International Conference on Photonics, Device and Systems, Aug 2011, Prague, Czech Republic. pp.830608, ⟨10.1117/12.912536⟩. ⟨hal-00732164⟩