Kir’yanov et al. Vol. 19, No. 3 / March 2002 / J. Opt. Soc. Am.

B 353

Cw-pumped erbium-doped fiber laser passively Q

switched with Co2⫹:ZnSe
crystal: modeling and experimental study

Alexander V. Kir’yanov, Valery N. Filippov, and Andrei N. Starodumov

Centro de Investigaciones en Optica A.C., Apartado Postal 948, Leon 37000, Gto, Mexico

Received March 2, 2001; revised manuscript received August 23, 2001

A novel scheme of an all-solid-state low-threshold passively Q-switched erbium fiber laser with a Co2⫹:ZnSe
saturable absorber is demonstrated experimentally and simulated numerically. © 2002 Optical Society of
America
OCIS codes: 140.350, 140.3480, 140.3540, 190.4400.

1. INTRODUCTION technique. The laser9 is built, as is claimed in Ref. 8, on

the basis of ‘‘a highly multimode fiber with a large core
Q-switched erbium fiber lasers have found use in applica-
and presumably poor transverse mode quality.’’
tions such as communications, reflectometry, and distrib-
In the present paper, we report on a thorough charac-
uted fiber-optical sensing. Two methods exist, active and
terization of a novel configuration of a cw-pumped all-
passive, to enforce a laser to generate giant pulses (GPs).
solid-state erbium fiber laser oscillating in the PQS mode
Actively Q-switched fiber lasers are currently well known,
with a Co2⫹:ZnSe SA.10 The laser is characterized by an
wide spread, and the most investigated. Among the ac-
extremely low threshold of GP generation (⬃20 mW), be-
tive methods of Q switching are the techniques of an all-
ing approximately 50–100-fold less by comparing the
fiber intensity modulator,1 the use of a pair of intracavity-
systems.6–9 The Co2⫹:ZnSe crystal is shown11,12 to be an
scanning Fabry–Perot filters,2 and, the most frequently
excellent SA for bulk solid-state erbium lasers. The re-
met, an acousto-optical modulator inside the cavity.3–5
markable advantage of the crystal is the low bleaching in-
All actively Q-switched lasers contain bulk elements that
tensity, ⬃800 W/cm2, within the spectral range of 1400–
make their design rather complicated, which is why the
1800 nm.13
attention of researchers has been recently attracted to de-
The paper is organized as follows: In Section 2, a the-
velop erbium fiber lasers with a passive Q switch inside
oretical model of the laser is treated, where a system of
the cavity. Such lasers have a set of conclusive advan-
rate equations is solved numerically, and results of the
tages compared with the actively Q-switched ones: small
modeling are analyzed to realize the device experimen-
size, simplicity of design, and principal opportunity of
tally. Section 3 deals with characterization of the laser
performance as all-fiber devices. Currently, there are
experimental setup and analysis of the main features of
only a few approaches to realize the passively Q-switched
(PQS) mode in fiber erbium lasers: (i) a laser with dis- the regimes, including a comparison of the experimental
tributed backscattering,6 (ii) a laser with a gallium lique- data with the theory. In Section 4, the main conclusions
fying mirror,7 (iii) a laser with a semiconductor structure of the study are formulated.
functioning as a saturable absorber (SA) mirror,8 and (iv)
a laser with a U:SrF2 crystalline switch.9 All the lasers
mentioned are more or less high powered; however, all
these suffer from the same disadvantage, a very high (⬎1 2. LASER MODELING
W) threshold of oscillation. The high pump threshold in
Modeling of cw-pumped PQS erbium lasers, including fi-
the systems7–9 is due to the use of large-mode fibers as
ber lasers, is not a novel issue.14–17 Let us consider the
the active medium (AM) and only partially to the effect of
model representing a cw-pumped erbium fiber laser PQS
the switches’ saturating intensity (tens or hundreds of
with a Co2⫹:ZnSe crystal, which is shown schematically
kW/cm2). The PQS erbium laser with backward
in Fig. 1. Using a set of laser rate equations derived in
reflection6 generates rather high-power radiation (up to
Refs. 18–20, we get a coupled system valid for a quasi-
10 kW), but the GPs are unstable.6 The lasers7,8 seem to
three-level AM (erbium-doped fiber) and a generalized
be superior in the sense of average output power (⬃0.15
two-level SA (Co2⫹:ZnSe crystal) as
W)8 and GP duration (tens of nanoseconds). However,
the first laser (Ref. 7) exhibits a very complicated system
where the nonlinear PQS element (a gallium drop) has to
be kept under extremely precise control, whereas the sec-
ond laser (Ref. 8) with the semiconductor saturable-
dF a
dt
⫽S⫹
Fa
tR
冋 2 ␴ a n a l a ⫺ 2 ␴ s l s n s ⫺ ln 冉 冊 册
1
R 1R 2
⫺␣ ,

absorber mirror structure as the PQS is a quite expensive (1)

0740-3224/2002/030353-07$15.00 © 2002 Optical Society of America

354 J. Opt. Soc. Am. B / Vol. 19, No. 3 / March 2002
Fig. 1. Laser schematic.
dn a n a ⫹ N a共 ␥ ⫺ 1 兲
⫽ ⫺␥ ␴ a n a F a c ⫹ ⌬ 共 N a ⫺ n a 兲 ⫺
dt ␶a
(2)
dn s ns ⫺ Ns
⫽ ⫺␴ s n s F a cK ⫺ , (3)
dt ␶s
where F a is the photon density inside the cavity at the
place of the AM; n a is the instantaneous population-
inversion density in the AM (N a is its initial value); ␴ a is
the laser stimulated-emission cross section; l a is the
length of the AM; ␥ is the factor representing reduction in
the population inversion in the AM (the parameter ␥ ac-
counts for the effects of level degeneracies and relaxation
or thermalization rates in the laser medium21); ␶ a is the
lasing lifetime of ions of erbium; S is the factor accounting
for the rate at which spontaneous emission is added to the
laser emission18; n s is the ground-state instantaneous
population density of the absorbing centers (Co2⫹) in a SA
(N s is the total density of the centers); ␴ s is the cross sec-
tion of the Co2⫹:ZnSe saturable resonant absorption; l s is
the length of the SA; ␶ s is the Co2⫹:ZnSe excited-state
lifetime; K ⫽ S a /S s is the ratio of the laser-beam geo-
metrical cross sections (assumed to be Gaussian) in the
AM (S a ) and the SA (S s ); ⌬ is the relative volumetric
pump rate into the upper laser level; R 1 and R 2 are the
reflection factors of the cavity mirrors M1 and M2 ; ␣ is the
remaining round-trip dissipative optical losses of the cav-
ity; t R ⫽ 2l/c is the round-trip transit time of light in the
cavity of optical length l 关 l ⫽ l 0 ⫹ l s ( ␩ a ⫺ 1) 兴 ⫹ l s ( ␩ s
⫺ 1), where l 0 is the air gap in the cavity and ␩ a, s are
the refractive indices of the erbium fiber and the
Co2⫹:ZnSe crystal, respectively], c is the velocity of light
in vacuum. The following additional comments must be
made:
(1) The system of rate equations (1)–(3) is written im-
plying that the polarization be kept linear and fixed
through all stages of the lasing evolution. The latter is,
in general, not true, provided by possible complicated po-
larization dynamics, as in a fiber AM22 or a crystalline SA
[one can allow that some sort of nonlinear anisotropy of
the ground-state absorption might appear in Co2⫹:ZnSe
crystal likely observed in a neodymium bulk laser with a
Cr4⫹:YAG saturable polarizer23,24]. Meanwhile, the
above assumption on the laser polarization as linear and
fixed allows one to simplify the modeling considerably, us-
ing Eqs. (1)–(3).
Kir’yanov et al.
(2) It is implied that an AM (erbium ions) exhibits a
system totally free from the excited-state absorption
(ESA) and collective processes25 (for instance, the self-
quenching of excitation in erbium ion pairs). The latter
mechanism might, in principle, lead itself to some kind of
additional passive Q switching in an erbium fiber. How-
ever, the active erbium fiber utilized by us (see Section 3)
is essentially a low-doped one, making this mechanism
be, most probably, negligible. Also neglected in the
analysis is the possible role of the linear losses in induc-
ing dynamic instabilities in a laser.26 Addressing
Co2⫹:ZnSe SA, let us mention that, although ESA is
present in the crystal, the resultant nonlinear losses ap-
pearing by this mechanism are negligible as well ( ␴ s,ESA
Ⰶ␴ s,GSA). 12,13 Therefore the generalized two-level
, scheme is quite well suited to describing the Co2⫹:ZnSe
SA functioning (Note that the issue of the ESA effect on
the SA work is not a problem and could be taken into ac-
count by applying the four-level model of the Co2⫹
centers27,28).
We limit ourselves to numerical solution of the system
(1)–(3), which, we believe, is quite appropriate to compare
the results with the experimental data (Section 3) and to
open up some recommendations for the laser’s further ad-
vance.
Let us look at the model input parameters. We had at
our disposal a piece (l a ⫽ 20 m) of low-doped (concentra-
tion of ions of erbium N 0 ⫽ 1.5 ⫻ 1018 cm⫺3 ) fiber, a
sample of Co2⫹:ZnSe crystal (with unbleached and totally
bleached transmission T in ⫽ 92 and T fin ⫽ 99.5%, re-
spectively), and two fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) as the
output mirrors (with reflection coefficients R 1 ⫽ 89 and
R 2 ⫽ 94%, respectively). The following parameters have
also been used:
Erbium fiber AM: ␴ a ⫽ 0.7 ⫻ 10⫺20 cm2 , ␥ ⫽ 1.8
(this factor is mainly determined by the ratio of lum-
inescence to absorption cross section of ions of erbium
at the lasing wavelength 1.56 ␮m); ␶ a ⫽ 1 ⫻ 10⫺2 s, 29
␩ a ⫽ 1.5; core diameter ⭋ a ⫽ 6.5 ␮ m.
Co2⫹:ZnSe SA: ␴ s ⫽ 5.3 ⫻ 10⫺19 cm2 ; ␶ s ⫽ 0.29
⫻ 10⫺3 s; ␩ s ⫽ 2.45; 12 l s ⫽ 0.05 cm; generation spot size
⭋ s ⫽ 12– 15 ␮ m.
Laser cavity: Ratio of the laser-beam spot sizes in the
AM (erbium fiber) and the SA (Co2⫹:ZnSe) K ⬇ 0.6; over-
all optical length l ⫽ 3000.06 cm; ␣ ⫽ 0.7 (this param-
eter is evaluated from the data on passive losses in the
erbium fiber and the estimation of the losses owing to cou-
pling of the laser radiation passing the U bench with the
Co2⫹:ZnSe crystal inside).
The initial value of the inversion population in the AM
was calculated as
N 0 共 ␥ ⫺ 1 兲关 exp共 ⫺h ␯ /kT 兲 ⫺ 1 兴
Na ⫽ . (4)
1 ⫹ 共 ␥ ⫺ 1 兲 exp共 ⫺h ␯ /kT 兲
resulting in N a ⬃ ⫺1.2 ⫻ 1018 cm⫺3 , whereas the total
concentration of the Co2⫹ centers in SA in the ground
state was evaluated as
ln T in
Ns ⫽ ⫺ , (5)
␴ sl s
Kir’yanov et al. Vol. 19, No. 3 / March 2002 / J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 355

giving N s ⬃ 2.75 ⫻ 1018 cm⫺3 . The rate of spontaneous

change in the photon density within the cavity, S, was
assumed to change within the range of 10⫺14 – 10⫺12
photons per second, depending on inversion in the
AM. The relative volumetric pump rate, ⌬, was varied
within 0–500 s⫺1, corresponding to the pump power
P PUMP ⫽ 0 – 125 mW:

⌬N o Vប ␻
P PUMP ⫽ , (6)
␩

where V ⫽ 7.5 ⫻ 10⫺4 cm3 is the fiber pumped volume,

h ␻ ⫽ 1.9 ⫻ 10⫺19 J is the pump photon energy, and
␩ ⬇ 0.6 is the factor accounting for the Stokes losses
(⬇0.65) and nonwhole pumping of the fiber (⬃0.95).
The results of numerical calculations are given by Figs.
2–4. Figure 2 shows the laser dynamics depending on the
pump rate. It is seen that quite different regimes of os-
cillation are observed in the laser: (I), Fig. 2(a), below
the PQS threshold (the area of continuous amplified spon-
taneous emission); (II), Fig. 2(b), the PQS mode where a
continuous train of GPs is generated; and (III), Fig. 2(c),
the area above the threshold of the laser transition from
the PQS mode to the cw operation. Physically, one can
connect the changes in the laser dynamics (curves 1 in
Fig. 2) with a degree of the Co2⫹:ZnSe crystal bleaching
(curves 2 in Fig. 2). Area I corresponds to the situation
in which the power of stimulated emission in the cavity is
insufficient to bleach the Co2⫹:ZnSe crystal. Within area
II, the Co2⫹:ZnSe crystal is just partially bleached (i.e.,
its dynamical transmission, T, is stabilized within the
range T in ⬍ T ⬍ T fin ⬇ 100%). Area III is the case in
which the rising intracavity power, after a finite number
of round trips, is able to saturate the whole Co2⫹:ZnSe
GSA line, which means the crystal transmission ap-
proaches the maximum, T ⫽ 100%, and, as a conse-
quence, the disappearance of a source of spiking in the la-
ser.
Figures 3 and 4 give the dependencies of the basic pa-
rameters of the laser, which are average intensity and GP
repetition rate (Fig. 3) and the pulse duration and peak
power (Fig. 4), versus the pump (the last dependence was
calculated by formulas for output energy of a PQS laser
given in Refs. 18, 28 and 30).
It is seen that average power of the laser (Fig. 3, curve
2) is a linear function of the pump; this behavior does not
change at its transition through the areas I, II, and III.
Curve 1 in Fig. 3 gives the repetition rate of GPs within
area II, where the PQS mode is realized. This depen-
dence has a quasi-linear character at low pump powers,
resembling the average power; however, one can note Fig. 2. Simulation of laser dynamics. Intracavity intensity
(curves 1) and Co2⫹:ZnSe transmission (curves 2) versus time are
some change (steepness) in its behavior at higher pumps
shown: (a) ⌬ ⫽ 80 s⫺1 (20.0 mW), operation in the superlumi-
(i.e., at the approach to the border between the stable nescence regime (area I); (b) ⌬ ⫽ 175 s⫺1 (43.7 mW), PQS opera-
PQS mode and cw operation). It is of interest that a tion (area II); (c) ⌬ ⫽ 295 s⫺1 (73.7 mW), cw operation (area III).
quite similar feature is observed experimentally (see Sec-
tion 3, Fig. 7), which supports the excellent fitting of the
model. (curve 2 in Fig. 4) has the characteristic hill-like shape.
The dependence of pulse duration versus the pump Both graphs also fit quite well the correspondent ones ob-
(curve 1, Fig. 4) demonstrates a classical feature observed served experimentally (see Section 3, Fig. 10). Hence the
in the PQS lasers,20 a dip in the middle part of the PQS dependencies in Fig. 4 have clearly expressed extrema ob-
area. The dependence of peak power versus the pump served in the middle part of the PQS area, a minimum of
356 J. Opt. Soc. Am. B / Vol. 19, No. 3 / March 2002 Kir’yanov et al.

kW/cm2. The crystal was tuned along the U-bench

Fig. 3. Calculated dependencies of repetition rate (curve 1) and
average power (curve 2) versus pump rate.
length to provide the beam waist (⭋ s ⫽ 15 ␮ m) to adjust
well close to the crystal center. The Co2⫹:ZnSe crystal
had an antireflection coating at a wavelength of 1550 nm.
Output characteristics of the laser were studied with a
wideband fast Ge photodiode, an oscilloscope (Textronix,
bandwidth of 200 MHz), and a powermeter.
The laser threshold was measured to be ⬃19 mW at a
wavelength of 1560 nm, at which the laser operates in the
superluminescence regime (i.e., area I in Section 2). Just
above the threshold of oscillation, with the pump increase
up to ⬃20 mW, the laser transited to the PQS regime (i.e.,
area II in Section 2), where stable GPs are observed (Fig.
6). At the PQS threshold, the pulses in a train are asym-
metrically shaped (trace 1 in Fig. 6), but the stronger the
pump, the more the pulses become quasi Gaussian (traces
2 and 3 in Fig. 6). It is seen from Fig. 6 that pulse width
depends on the pump and is measured from 3 ␮s (in the
dip) to 12 ␮s (at the left and right sides). Rather long
pulse duration is explained, first, by a rather long relax-
ation time of the Co2⫹:ZnSe SA (⬃0.3 ms) and, second, by
the cavity length, which, in turn, was dictated by the need

Fig. 4. Calculated dependencies of GP pulse width (curve 1) and

peak power (curve 2) versus pump rate.

GP duration (curve 1) and maximum of their peak power. Fig. 5. Reflection spectra of FBG mirrors M1 and M2.
The latter fact allows one to manipulate the output pa-
rameters of the laser by simple changing the pump power.

3. EXPERIMENT AND DISCUSSION

Taking into account the model predictions, we built the
laser of the original configuration (Fig. 1).10 Radiation
from a pump diode laser (wavelength 976 nm) was
launched with a wavelength-division-multiplexed coupler
in the master cavity. The cavity contained a piece of a
single-mode moderately doped fiber and a thin Co2⫹:ZnSe
crystal with the parameters indicated above. The two
FBG mirrors had maxima of reflection coefficients of 94%
and 89%, respectively, both centered at wavelength 1560
nm (Fig. 5). The key element of the scheme, allowing the
realization of the PQS mode in the laser, was a U-bench
unit with the Co2⫹:ZnSe crystal inside (see inset in Fig.
1). It was developed especially to get a power density of
intracavity radiation at the crystal of the order of 1 Fig. 6. Experimental snapshots of single GPs.
Kir’yanov et al.
Fig. 7. Experimental dependencies of repetition rate (curve 1)
and average power (curve 2) versus diode pump.
Fig. 8. Experimental snapshots of GP trains demonstrating in-
stabilities appeared at the laser transition from PQS to cw op-
eration.
to pump the fiber AM at the maximum pump power (110
mW). Note that pulse duration might, in principle, be
shortened by applying as the AM higher-doped erbium fi-
bers of short length, or so-called large-mode fibers (see
Section 1).
Figure 7 shows the dependencies of average output
power (measured behind the 89%-FBG-mirror, M1 ) and
repetition rate of GPs versus the diode pump. It is seen
that both curves are fitted fairly well by a linear law at
low pump powers, being practically parallel in this area.
However, like it was shown in the laser modeling (Fig. 3),
Vol. 19, No. 3 / March 2002 / J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 357
some deviations from the linear law are observed for the
repetition rate, when the pump reaches the border be-
tween the PQS and cw operations. Note that the PQS re-
gime in the latter circumstances takes an unstable char-
acter with a timing jitter appearance (see Fig. 8, where
the two portraits of the laser dynamics are shown mea-
sured at a large-scale timing). At a further increase of
the pump, the PQS mode is replaced by cw oscillation (i.e.,
transition from area II to area III takes place; see Fig. 2
in Section 2). The last phenomenon occurs when a period
between the adjacent pulses in the train approaches the
value of a separate GP’s width, which, in turn, is deter-
mined by the cavity length. Let us finally note that no
change in output power of the laser is observed at its
transit from PQS to cw operation (compare Fig. 7 and Fig.
3).
Figure 9 gives the characteristic spectrum of the laser
operating in the PQS mode. Let us mention, first, a com-
paratively narrow line of generation and, second, an ob-
servation of the spectrum’s maximum tuning by the lon-
gitudinal shift or rotation of the Co2⫹:ZnSe crystal in the
U bench.
Figure 10 gives the experimental dependencies of (a)
pulse duration, (b) energy, and (c) peak power as functions
of the pump. It is seen that all the parameters are in
quite-good agreement with the ones predicted by the
theory (Section 2, Fig. 4). Not just the main features of
the GPs’ characteristics coincide with the theoretical ones
(for instance, the maxima of pulse energy and peak power
and the minimum of pulse duration, all centered at the
middle part of the PQS area), but their magnitudes as
well.
Thus one can characterize the laser quite well by the
simple model developed above and possibly characterize
future laser advances. For instance, it seems tempting
to reach more powerful GPs by shortening of the cavity
(i.e., applying a higher-doped or large-mode erbium fiber
as the AM) and by use of a Co2⫹:ZnSe SA of less initial
transmission.
4. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, we have demonstrated, for the first time to
our knowledge, operation of a cw-pumped all-solid-state
Fig. 9. Laser spectrum in the stable PQS mode. Pump power
is 60 mW.
358 J. Opt. Soc. Am. B / Vol. 19, No. 3 / March 2002
Fig. 10. Experimental dependencies of (a) pulse width, (b) en-
ergy, and (c) peak power versus the diode pump.
low-threshold erbium fiber laser passively Q switched
with a Co2⫹:ZnSe crystal. Experimental results are
shown to be in excellent agreement with a simple theoret-
ical model of the laser.
Kir’yanov et al.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia
y Technologi’a (Mexico) by project 32269-E. The authors
wish to thank N. V. Kuleshov (International Laser Center,
Minsk, Belarus) for the samples of Co2⫹:ZnSe.
Kir’yanov Alexander Viktorovich, Centro de Investiga-
ciones en Optica, Apartado Postal 948, 37150 Leon, GTO,
Mexico. Telephone: 52-47-175823. Fax: 52-47-
175000. E-mail: kiryanov@foton.cio.mx.
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