Incoherently pumped high-power linearly-polarized single-mode random fiber laser: experimental investigations and theoretical prospects

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a high-power, linearly-polarized random fiber laser reaching over 100W, and explores its potential to scale up to 300W, combining experimental results with theoretical analysis.

Contribution

It presents the first 100W linearly-polarized high-order RFL and analyzes its power scaling prospects theoretically.

Findings

Achieved 100.7 W output power with high polarization extinction.

Demonstrated pump-to-Stokes quantum efficiency of 89.01%.

Predicted 300 W power scaling potential theoretically.

Abstract

We present a hundred-watt-level linearly-polarized random fiber laser (RFL) pumped by incoherent broadband amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) source and prospect the power scaling potential theoretically. The RFL employs half-opened cavity structure which is composed by a section of 330 m polarization maintained (PM) passive fiber and two PM high reflectivity fiber Bragg gratings. The 2nd order Stokes light centered at 1178 nm reaches the pump limited maximal power of 100.7 W with a full width at half-maximum linewidth of 2.58 nm and polarization extinction ratio of 23.5 dB. The corresponding ultimate quantum efficiency of pump to 2nd order Stokes light is 89.01%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of linearly-polarized high-order RFL with hundred-watt output power. Furthermore, the theoretical investigation indicates that 300 W-level linearly-polarized single-mode 1st order Stokes light can be obtained from incoherently pumped RFL with 100 m PM passive fiber.