Optical-fiber lasers exploit new techniques and materials

Abstract

Progress in fiber laser research around the world is accelerating as the implications of new materials and fabrication techniques begin to be felt. With the appearance of the fiber grating reflector the potential versatility of the spectrally broad emission characteristic of glass fibers can at last be exploited, in compact and rugged narrow linewidth sources at wavelengths precisely selected over a wide band. Fiber lasers are no longer restricted to low power operation; the cladding-pumping technique enables light from high power pump sources which are not diffraction-limited to be used efficiently, converted to output which may be multiwatt and enhanced in brightness by more than two orders of magnitude. Moreover. rare-earth-doped fluoride glass fiber is now commercially available from both Le Verre Fluoré, France, and Galileo Electro-Optics, MA; this is a "low-phonon-energy" alternative to silica, which offers many more metastable energy levels and laser transitions over a larger spectral range. Fluoride fibers have lased at blue and even ultraviolet wavelengths when pumped by longer-wavelength sources in upconversion lasing schemes.

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