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In this paper, we present a new method of point-by-point femtosecond inscription of fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) arrays of different configurations in a 7-core spun optical fiber. The possibility of FBGs inscription with predefined periods in individual fiber cores allowed us to realize: 1) longitudinal FBG arrays with identical or variable resonant wavelengths in all side cores, 2) longitudinal FBG arrays inscribed only in the central or in the selected side core, and 3) an FBG array in a transverse cross section of a fiber consisting of an FBG inscribed in the central and three side cores. Based on the proposed method, by enabling the inscription through the acrylate protective coating of the fiber, a vector bend sensor has been created. Implementation of this sensor has shown that bending radii less than 4 mm can be measured with a high precision using a single-channel interrogation scheme.

An external-cavity generation of powerful ultrashort pulses in an all-fiber scheme by using a new type of phosphosilicate polarization maintaining fiber is investigated. The phosphorus-related Stokes shifted Raman pulse near 1.3 microns is observed. Optimization of Stokes output spectrum depending on pump pulse duration (chirp), energy and output coupling ratio of the cavity is performed. As result, the output energy of highly-chirped pulses compressible to 570 fs reaches 1.6 nJ.

Dynamic population inversion gratings induced in an active medium by counter-propagating optical fields may have a reverse effect on writing laser radiation via feedback they provide. In this Letter we report, to the best of our knowledge, on the first demonstration of an open-cavity fiber laser in which the distributed feedback is provided by a dynamic grating "written" in a Yb-doped active fiber, either by an external source or self-induced via a weak (∼0.1%) reflection from an angle-cleaved fiber end. It has been shown that meters-long dynamic grating is formed with a narrow bandwidth (50 MHz) and a relatively high-reflection coefficient (7%) securing single-frequency operation, but the subsequent hole-burning effects accompanied by new grating formation lead to the switching from one longitudinal mode to another. providing a regular pulse-mode dynamics. As a result, periodically generated pulse trains cover a spectrum range of several terahertz delivering millions of cavity modes in sequent pulses.

We report on the first demonstration of an all-fiber CW Raman laser based on a multimode graded-index fiber directly pumped by multimode fiber-coupled laser diodes. A joint action of Raman clean-up effect and mode-selection properties of special fiber Bragg gratings inscribed in the central part of the graded-index fiber core, results in high-efficiency conversion of a multimode (M2~26) pump at 915 nm into a high-quality (M2~2.6) output beam at 954 nm. About 50 W output power has been obtained with slope efficiency of 67%. The proposed development and integration of key multimode fiber technologies opens the door to new type of LD-pumped high-power high-beam-quality fiber lasers that may operate at almost any wavelength defined by available LDs.

We demonstrate for the first time a CW all-polarization maintaining (PM) all-fiber optical parametric oscillator (FOPO) based on a birefringent photonic crystal fiber pumped by a tunable linearly polarized ytterbium-doped fiber laser. The all-PM FOPO features polarization-adjustment-free tunable operation in wavelength range from 920 to 1000 nm for both the slow and the fast fiber axes with output power reaching 1.3 W.

Random fiber lasers blend together attractive features of traditional random lasers, such as low cost and simplicity of fabrication, with high-performance characteristics of conventional fiber lasers, such as good directionality and high efficiency. Low coherence of random lasers is important for speckle-free imaging applications. The random fiber laser with distributed feedback proposed in 2010 led to a quickly developing class of light sources that utilize inherent optical fiber disorder in the form of the Rayleigh scattering and distributed Raman gain. The random fiber laser is an interesting and practically important example of a photonic device based on exploitation of optical medium disorder. We provide an overview of recent advances in this field, including high-power and high-efficiency generation, spectral and statistical properties of random fiber lasers, nonlinear kinetic theory of such systems, and emerging applications in telecommunications and distributed sensing.

Short pulses are generated by mode-locking techniques: amplitude modulation in time domain or frequency modulation in frequency domain. Direct Fourier synthesis of radiation from several single-frequency sources offers an opportunity to generate arbitrary waveforms. Here we report on a new technique of short-pulse synthesis in the Fourier domain. Instead of independent laser sources, we use a single multimode laser with retrieval of its individual cavity modes into a time sequence coherently combined in an external cavity. Combination of 20 consequent single-mode pulses has been performed, demonstrating a new way for arbitrary waveforms synthesis.

Continuous tuning over 80 nm is demonstrated for the anti-Stokes wave generated in an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on a birefringent photonic crystal fiber pumped by a CW Ytterbium-doped fiber laser tuned around 1.05 μm (within 4 nm only). An influence of the pump laser linewidth and polarization state on the fiber OPO threshold and efficiency is studied. Slope efficiency of parametric generation at 931 nm reaches 19% for ~0.1 nm linearly polarized pump with threshold power of ~5W. At that, the generated linewidth amounts to about 1 nm.

Experimental results are presented on selection of high-order modes in broad aperture laser diode coupled with digital planar hologram (DPH). Computer-generated hologram DPH fabricated on SiO2Gex waveguide core determines the spectrum and field distribution at the laser output. The technology allows a temperature-stable spectral narrowing down to 0.6 nm and a decrease of the far-field distribution width from 6.5° to 2°. These results open a novel route for increasing the brightness and wavelength temperature stabilization of high-power laser diodes by coupling with planar photonic circuit.

An analytical model for self phase modulation in Yb-doped fiber laser (YDFL) describing output spectrum and its broadening with increasing power has been developed. Spectral measurements in continuous wave (CW) cladding-pumped YDFL have proved the validity of the model demonstrating hyperbolic secant shape of the spectrum and linear increase of the line width with power in 1-12 W range. At lower powers, spatial hole burning and line self-sweeping effects become important and define the lower limit for the line width.

Amplification of incoherent light pulses in a relatively short active fiber is treated. Spectral broadening due to the self-phase modulation effect at negligibly small dispersion has been studied theoretically. The expression for the shape of the output spectrum has been obtained for input pulses of arbitrary temporal and spectral shape at various gain coefficients. The expression is found to be simplified in case of a hyperbolic secant temporal shape. The calculated shapes have been compared with the experimentally measured spectra for Q-switched fiber laser nanosecond pulses amplified in Yb-doped fiber, demonstrating excellent agreement of theory and experiment. The spectrum of the output pulse is shown to be composed of two different-scale structures: a narrow central part copying the initial shape and broad exponential tails that grow with increasing output power.

We demonstrate a CW random distributed feedback Raman fiber laser operating in a 1.2 μm spectral band. The laser generates up to 3.8 W of the quasi-CW radiation at 1175 nm with the narrow spectrum of 1 nm. Conversion efficiency reaches 60%. Up to 1 W is generated at the second Stokes wavelength of 1242 nm. It is shown that the generation spectrum of RDFB Raman fiber laser is much narrower than the spectrum in the system without a weak random feedback.

In this paper, the stability of the analytical solutions of the cubic–quintic Ginzburg–Landau equation (CQGLE) in the high-chirp approximation has been studied numerically. The existence domain for the stable solution in the CQGLE parameter set has been found. A temporal and spectral shape of the stable solution as dependent of the cavity parameters has been analyzed. Direct comparison of the spectra with numerical calculations has been performed, demonstrating 10−2–10−4 accuracy of the analytical solution for chirp parameter f>10. The stable solutions represent the dissipative soliton family with only one composite parameter. Inside this family, the pulse shape in the time domain evolves from the conventional soliton shape, sech−2, to a rectangular one in the opposite limit with a parabolic shape as an intermediate one. The obtained theoretical results make it possible to classify experimentally observed highly chirped pulses and to optimize experimental schemes with an all-normal-dispersion cavity.

We present the first experimental demonstration of a resolvable mode structure with spacing c/2nL in the RF spectra of ultralong Raman fiber lasers. The longest ever demonstrated laser cavity (L=84km), RF peaks of ∼100 Hz width and spacing ∼1 kHz have been observed at low intracavity powers. The width of the peaks increases linearly with growing intracavity power and is almost independent of fiber length. © 2007 Optical Society of America.

A simple all-fiber widely tunable phosphosilicate Raman fiber laser (RFL) of high efficiency has been developed. The laser has more than 50 nm tuning range, and generates up to 3.2 W of output power with 72% maximum slope efficiency. The output power is almost constant in the range 1258-1303 nm. The width and the spectral power density of the RFL output spectrum can be controlled by the detuning of its cavity fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) thus being optimized for efficient frequency doubling.

We present an analytical theory based on wave kinetic equations that describes a Raman fiber laser (RFL) generation spectrum. It is shown both theoretically and experimentally that the quasi-degenerate four-wave mixing between different longitudinal modes is the main broadening mechanism in the one-stage RFL at high powers. The shape and power dependence of the intracavity Stokes wave spectrum are in excellent quantitative agreement with predictions of the theory.

A Raman gain spectral profile has been measured in a phosphosilicate fiber at high pump and Stokes (signal) wave powers by a coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) technique. It has been shown that the profile saturates homogeneously. The main saturation mechanism is proved to be the pump depletion; i.e., the Raman gain coefficient gR does not depend on the pump and signal wave power of several watts. The possible influence of stimulated Brillouin scattering and four-wave mixing is discussed. In addition, a transient regime of the CARS signal has been experimentally observed and theoretically explained.