See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/276024952

Fiber Lasers

Research · May 2015

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1861.7761

CITATIONS READS

0 10,573

1 author:

Macera Giuseppe
Analog Devices, Inc.
13 PUBLICATIONS 21 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Macera Giuseppe on 09 May 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Università degli Studi di Napoli
Federico II

Facoltà di Ingegneria
Corso di Laurea Magistrale in ingegneria Elettronica
Elaborato d’esame
Corso: Integrated Photonic

Principles, typologies and applications of Fiber Lasers

Prof. Breglio Giovanni Candidato:

Macera Giuseppe

Matr. M61/214

Anno Accademico

2013/2014

1
 Index

CHAPTER 1: SOME PRELIMINAR CONCEPTS

1.1:Rare-earth doped optical fibers
1.2:Rate equations
1.2.1: Population dynamics and propagation equations of a three-level system
1.3:Fiber Optic Technology
1.4:Fiber Bragg Grating and the CMT

CHAPTER 2:PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION AND

PERFORMANCES OF A FIBER LASER
2.1: Fiber laser and its performances
2.2: Block-scheme of a fiber laser
2.2.1:Block-scheme of a typical laser
2.2.2: Fiber laser
2.3: Fiber lasers vs. bulk lasers
Basic Laser and Optical Properties
Aspects Concerning High-power Devices
Short Pulse Generation
Sensitivity to Optical Feedback
Robustness and Cost
Uncertainties in Parameters
Some Guidelines
2.4: Optical, mechanical, electrical and environmental specifications of a
fiber laser
2.5: Modeling of a quasi two-level fiber laser: the optimal length of the FB
2.6: Noise in Fiber Laser : kinds, quantification and minimization

CHAPTER 3:MATERIALS AND SEVERAL

TYPOLOGIES OF FIBER LASERS
3.1: Yb3+ high power double-clad fiber laser and MCVD
2.1.1:Launching the Pump Light
3.2: DFB lasers and their only limitation of the quantum noise
3.3: Switchable ytterbium-doped fiber laser based on LFG

2
3.4: Pulsed Fiber Lasers
3.4.1: Mode-locked Fiber Lasers
3.4.2: Q-switched Fiber Lasers

3.5: The Fiber Disk Laser

CHAPTER 4:SEVERAL APPLICATIONS OF FIBER

LASERS
4.1: Advantages and general recent applications of fiber lasers

4.2: Double-clad fiber laser for particle image velocimetry (PIV)

APPENDIX 1: THE PERIODIC TABLE OF ELEMENTS

APPENDIX 2: THE VISIBLE SPECTRUM

3
 PRESENTATION
Interest in fiber lasers has been driven by the phenomenal growth in fiber-optic communications,
which itself resulted from the fundamental breakthrough in producing silica optical fibers with
extremely low light-transmission losses. One clear argument for development of fiber laser
technology has been its ready compatibility with optical fiber systems. This has been borne out by
the successful integration of erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) technology into long-distance
communications systems only a few years after initial laboratory demonstrations. Without a
doubt, the EDFA remains the one great triumph in active fiber lasers. For the purpose of this
review , the aim of this argumentation is to show what is a fiber laser, how this system works and
what kind of typologies and recent applications is possible to find . In all the elaborate, fiber lasers
are described especially in respect of the classical laser , showing in this way what are the changes
and first of all the advantages that we can reach with a fiber laser. Describing the principles of
operation of such a laser, it is very important to dedicate an introduction chapter(1) to the
argumentation , useful to recall the main physical phenomena that regards light-matter
interaction, and also the importance of doping a semiconductor. Some important relations that
can be important to describe a fiber lasers are derived in the introduction chapter in order to not
make fiber laser’s argumentation too dull.
In chapter 2 is carefully described how a fiber laser works , what kind of parameters and quantities
are important to characterize it, and its analytical model based on rate equations and propagation
equations. This last exposition is useful to determinate the optimal fiber length for maximum
efficiency.

4
In chapter 3 several kind of fiber lasers and usual materials are presented: we pass from double-
clad fiber laser to DFB laser, from switchable lasers to pulsed lasers. The most important element
used as dopant is Yb3+.

Finally, chapter 4 deals with some kind of application of fiber lasers.

It is important to underline that the typologies and applications of fiber lasers are several and
several, and it is impossible to give an exhaustive argumentation about them, so there are only
some examples regarding them.

All the elaborate has been written with the aid of some important optoelectronic texts and some
scientific articles, all cited in the bibliography and sitography.

5
 CHAPTER1

SOME PRELIMINAR CONCEPTS

Since a fiber laser can be seen as a laser with an active gain medium realized using a doped optical
fiber, and since the gain and the efficiency of the laser is determined especially from this kind of
medium( in particular from the material used as doping), is useful to dedicate an introduction
paragraph to doped optical fibers , with particular attention also to the materials used, especially
the ytterbium (Yb3+). The rate equations are very important to describe the behavior of a typical
laser, because from these, we can derive the optical gain of the optical amplifier which is the
active system of the laser. So another paragraph of this introduction chapter is all dedicated to
rate equations and all the analytical derivations of involved formulas are here deriver in order to
not make fiber laser’s argumentation too dull. Also the technology for realization of fibers is very
important, because from it depend lots of features of the fiber, especially losses. Here is briefly
described the OVD, because in chapter 2 a most efficient technique(MCVD) is introduced. Since
the resonant cavity of a fiber laser is essentially an FBG, an analytical description of this device is
essential to understand its behaviour.

1.1:Rare-earth doped optical fibers

An optical fiber becomes active by doping its core with one or more atomic elements, usually
(but not restricted to) rare-earths (RE’s), more specifically, the lanthanides that occupy the atomic
numbers 57 to 71 of the periodic table. They use three electrons in bonding to the condensed
materials such as crystals and glasses to become triply ionized ions. Because they present
absorption and emission bands from UV to NIR, the materials doped with these become very
active in converting the properties of optical signals. Most optical fibers are made of crystal quartz
(SiO2) that is melted and cooled down such that stays casually in its vitreous state. This disordered
pattern of the constituents, Silicon and Oxygen, produce randomly distorted unit cells of the
crystal (quartz) to become silica. Other important fiber materials with special properties have
been discovered (and studied) during the last decades; among the vast variety, the zirconium-
fluorides have been of special importance because the RE’s notably change their spectral
properties. Among those changes are the broadening of the absorption and emission bands and
much longer excited state lifetimes of up to some orders of magnitude compared to silica. In
addition, their operation region covers and further exceeds the silica transparency band. Broader
absorption bands allow the use of non wavelength-stable or even multi-line delivering pumps,
usually provided by the cheapest semiconductor lasers; whereas with broader emission bands, it is
possible to cover a wide range of emitting wavelengths. For illumination or broadband sources this
characteristic becomes important . Also the optical fiber amplifiers (FA‘s) that amplify weak signals
such as the channels of telecommunication systems increase their capacity thanks to this

6
characteristic. Because a laser is an amplifier with a resonant cavity, it is possible to take
advantage of this broad emission spectrum to generate several laser lines by designing the
appropriate resonator or even, it is possible to insert a wavelength selecting device within the
cavity to select the desired wavelength to be emitted. Longer lifetimes benefits efficiency in
some fiber lasers (FL’s) and FA’s and also increase the probability for already excited ions to
absorb another photon that re-excites them to a more energetic state from which, if the lifetime is
also long a third photon may be absorbed, and so on. This re-excitation is called excited state
absorption (ESA) and when two or more photons are absorbed to excite a higher energy level
capable of producing or amplifying signals of shorter wavelengths, it is said that upconversion
occur.

1.2:Rate equations
We should remember that each atom that compounds a lattice structure , has his electrons on
well-defined energetic bands; an electromagnetic wave can exchange energy with this structure
only involving photons, that can be considered finite quantities of energy. If ω is the frequency of
the interacting wave, the energy absorbed (or given) is proportional to ω. Let consider a material ,
with his energy levels:

Figure 1.2.1:Four level scheme

When the electromagnetic wave interacts with the material, we can have two different situations:

 hω E2-E1 E3-E2 E4-E3  the material is transparent to the wave;

 hω E2-E1  the photon is absorbed by the material and the electron will jump from E1 to
E2.(absorption)

Schematically , if N were the input photons, N-1 would be the output photons; the electron , after
a lifetime( , will decay from the new state of energy (E2 ) to his old state (E1): this phenomenon
can happen in a radiative way , emitting a photon(decay) , or simply giving heat to the material.
The emission of the photon when an electron decays can be spontaneous when the electron emits
the photon in a generic instant and in a generic direction, or stimulated. Stimulated emission
happens when the electron belongs to the E2 level of energy, and the energy of the incident

7
photon (hω) is equal to E2-E1: in this case the electron has to decay and emits a photon with the
same energy of the incident one, but in a well-defined direction.

It is possible to calculate the attenuation coefficient ( [ cm-1]) of the material through the
relation:

where N is the number of electrons, and the subscripts “I and S” mean “superior” and “inferior” in terms of
level of energy; is a constant ( dimensionally [m2]) typical of the energy level couple considered.
Considering Boltzmann law:

it is clear that , because , and so In order to change its sign, the only one
required condition is that , that can be satisfied only by giving energy (pumping) to the
system.

It should be noted that the number of energetic levels in a material is infinity, but in each physical
phenomenon, only a finite number of these levels are involved. Considering a two-level system, it
means that in the particular physical phenomenon analyzed, only two levels are involved.

Figure 1.2.2: two level scheme

The pumping system allows a number of electrons to jump on the superior level, that can be
expressed by:

where is a constant ([s-1]) depending on the pumping system. Rate Equations describe the
velocity of change of population in the levels, and can be written as follows:

8
Solving the system in stationary regime, we can find the population difference:

We can observe that, for each , : in a two-level system it is impossible to reach

the inversion of population.

So, let consider a three-level system (that are 0,1,2), in which the pumping system act between 0
level (fundamental) and 2 level, and the inversion of population happens between 1 and 0 level.
The R.E of level 2 is:

The R.E of level 1 is:

Finally, for the level 0, R.E is:

Let observe that the R.E of the level 0 (that is written for completeness) is implicitly written in the
following equation:

Solving the system in stationary regime, we obtain the relative difference of population between
level 0 and 1:

The threshold pumping constant(correspondent to the one that brings )is:

If (bottleneck condition) and , we have and so the inversion of

population. Optical amplifiers gain is directly proportional to .

9
In a four-level system (Figure 0.1), the pumping is done between 1(fundamental) and 4, and the
transition between 3 and 2. R.Es are:

Solving the equations in stationary regime, we have:

where , . The inversion of population is reached when a<1 ; there not exist a
in a four-level system.

1.2.1Population dynamics and propagation equations of a three-level system

Several amplifiers and fiber lasers that have been developed are modeled as three-level systems.

Figure 1.2.1.1:Three-level equivalent scheme

Based on the equivalent scheme , R13 and R31 are respectively the rates of excitation and
deexitation of the pump level, which formulas are:

10
W12 and W21 are the ones corresponding to the signal:

The radiative ratio is given by:

Where is the level lifetime. Let write rate equations (NR= non radiative):

In some particular elements, such as Yb3+ or Ho3+, the absorption and the emission bands overlap,
as shown in the next picture:

Figure 1.2.1.2:Overlap between bands

In this case, a three-level system can be reduced to a two-level one with (very high ).

11
Then equations and change to:

And hence the ions dynamically distribute on the energy levels as:

Under CW(d/dt=0)

One obtains the population densities at each energy level of the simplified system.

The pump variation of the quasi two-level system when traveling from point to point along the
fiber is:

Where

is the gain coefficient produced by the dopants that in most conditions is dominated by the first
term being a negative gain. In the same manner, for the propagating signal:

Where

12
refers also to the gain coefficient. When the fiber is not pumped and a weak signal propagates,
and hence all the population is in the steady state. The gain coefficient becomes the small
signal loss coefficient:

It has been shown that the loss coefficient is a function of the pump power as follows:

Where (if there is no spectra overlap) is the pump power that makes possible to have ,
and obviously is called saturation pump power; if “a” is the cross section area of the fiber core:

In the same way, the small signal gain coefficient is:

Where:

is the saturation signal power. For quasi two-level systems, the saturation signal equations are:

By defining some parameters:

13
 The propagation equations reduce to:

1.3:Fiber Optic Technology

There are a number of processes for producing optical fiber(preform) for various applications:

 Outside vapor deposition (OVD) is a process where the silica soot is deposited on the surface of
some target rod (e.g. a glass mandrel), rather than inside a tube as with MCVD. Together with the
material precursors such as SiCl4, a fuel gas such as hydrogen or methane is supplied to a burner
which is again moved along the rotating rod. After the deposition, the target rod is removed, and
the preform is consolidated in a furnace, where it is also purged with a drying gas for lowering the
hydroxyl content.
 Vapor phase axial deposition (VAD or AVD) is similar to OVD, but uses a modified geometry,
where the deposition occurs at the end of the target rod. The rod is continuously pulled away from
the burner, and very long preforms can be made. Consolidation of the material can be done in a
separate zone melting process. An important difference to OVD and MCVD is that the doping
profile is determined only by the burner geometry, rather than by a variation of the gas mixture
over time.
 Plasma chemical vapor deposition (PCVD) uses deposition inside a tube, similar to MCVD.
However, microwaves instead of a burner are used for heating the deposition region. The
deposition is slow, but very precise. A modified method with particularly high precision is plasma
impulse chemical vapor deposition (PICVD), where short microwave pulses are used. There is
also plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition(PECVD), operating at atmospheric pressure with
fairly high deposition rate.
 The preforms for multimode fibers, particularly for large core fibers, are often fabricated
using plasma outside deposition (POD), where an outer fluorine-doped layer with depressed
refractive index, later forming the fiber cladding, is made with a plasma torch. The core can then
be made of pure silica, without any dopant.
The general advantage of vapor deposition methods is that extremely low propagation losses
down to below 0.2 dB/km can be achieved, because very high-purity materials can be used and
contamination is avoided. In particular, SiCl4 and GeCl4 are easily purified by distillation, as they
are liquid at room temperature. Particularly when no hydrogen is present (e.g. as fuel gas), the

14
water content of such preforms is very low, avoiding a strong loss peak at 1.4 μm, which would
also affect the telecom bands .

Figure 1.3.1:The general advantage of vapor deposition methods

is that extremely low propagation losses down to below 0.2 dB/km can be achieved, because
very high-purity materials can be used and contamination is avoided.

Figure 1.3.2:Schematic illustration of a fiber drawing tower

15
1.4:Fiber Bragg Grating and the CMT
A fiber Bragg grating is a periodic perturbation of the effective refractive index in the core of an
optical fiber. Typically, the perturbation is approximately periodic over a certain length of e.g. a
few millimeters or centimeters, and the period is of the order of hundreds of nanometers, or
much longer for long-period fiber gratings.

Figure 1.4.1:Schematic structure of a fiber Bragg grating (FBG)

In this section, we are not interesting on the countless applications that an FBG has, but only on
presenting some analytical relations that can be important for the following argumentation.

Let start with illustrating the propagating waves in Bragg grating:

Figure 1.4.2: Propagating waves in Bragg grating

16
For the grating guide, we can write:

The electric fields of the propagating waves can be then expressed as:

each satisfying the guide equation:

Considering the final solution as the overlap between and we obtain:

After some calculations, we obtain the coupled-mode equations that describes the amplitudes of
waves:

if we assume that both forward and backward waves enter the grating, then assume the boundary
conditions B(0) = Bo and A(L) = AL. Substituting these boundary conditions into equations, we can
solve for the closed- form solutions and thus the z-dependence of the two waves.

The reflected wave, a(0), and the transmitted wave, b(L) can be expressed by means of the
scattering matrix:

Substituting a(L)and b(0) from previous equations into this, we get:

Where:

17
In the same way:

Where:

The characteristics response from Bragg Grating can be fully described by

1. The center wavelength of Grating λB
2. Peak reflectivity Rmax of grating which occur at λB
3. Physical length of Grating L
4. Refractive index of core of optical fiber nco
5. Amplitude of induced core index perturbation ∆n
For a grating with uniform index modulation and period, the reflectivity is given by

Figure 1.4.3: reflected power spectrum of a FBG

18
 CHAPTER2

PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION AND

PERFORMANCES OF A FIBER LASER

2.1: Fiber laser and its performances

In digital communications, signals are generally sent as light pulses along an optical fiber.
Information is first converted to an electrical signal that is in the form of pulses, that represent
bits of information that are in digital form: each pulse has a well-defined duration. The electrical
signal drives a light emitter such as a laser diode, whose light output is appropriately coupled into
a fiber for transmission to the destination. The light output at the destination end of the fiber is
coupled to a photodetector that converts the light signal back to an electric signal. The
information is then decoded from this electrical signal.

Figure 2.1: An optical fiber link for transmitting digital information

As regards fibers used, we know that a first classification of them can be made considering the
propagating field in them. There is an important difference : in a single mode fiber, the dispersion
coefficient is relatively small in respect of that of a multimode fiber ( in a multimode fiber, the
dispersion coefficient is greater because of the intramodal dispersion), but at the same time, the
numerical aperture (NA) is very small , while in a multimode optical fiber, NA is greater. Having in
mind the definition of the NA for an optical fiber, a relatively small numerical aperture means a
reduction of light that can be coupled into the fiber. Without analyzing in detail the dispersion
theory in a fiber, it is clear that in order to reduce dispersion , the alternatives are two: reduce the
dispersion coefficient of the fiber by using good materials and technology , and using a good
source. But, although there aren’t no problem in having a good source ( it is not difficult nowadays
to have a very narrow output spectrum from a laser), if the NA is small (or not appropriate) , the
angle of acceptance of a the fiber is however too small. A very important alternative for that
problem can be a fiber laser, that can be seen as a fiber embedded into a laser.

19
In 1960, while working for the Huges Research Laboratory in California, T. H. Maiman reported on
August the first laser by irradiating (pumping) a crystal (ruby)-cavity with a powerful flash lamp.
Soon after, on December 1961, while working for the American Optical Company in
Massachusetts, E. Snitzer reported laser oscillation in an optical fiber based cavity. It consisted of a
Nd3+ -doped optical fiber cavity pumped by a flash lamp that for obvious reasons was termed
fiber laser (FL). The fact that absorption losses in optical fibers were gradually decreasing (at
present for example the best telecommunication fibers have a loss of less than 0.2 dB/km),
together with the development of semiconductor lasers that were introduced as pumps for this
type of lasers strongly motivated its investigation that boomed in the 1980’s. Laser diodes are
among the most efficient with typical overall electrical-to-optical conversion efficiencies superior
to 50 %.
A fiber laser (or fibre laser) is a laser in which the active gain medium is an optical fiber doped
with rare-earth elements such as erbium, ytterbium, neodymium, dysprosium, praseodymium
and thulium. A FL is to all effects a fiber laser converter because it convert the coherent
wavelength(s) of the laser pump into different (also coherent) ones. They are related to doped
fiber amplifiers, which provide light amplification without lasing. They are optical amplifiers that
use a doped optical fibre as a gain medium to amplify an optical signal, as shown in the next
picture.

Figure 2.2: A doped fiber amplifier

The advantages of fiber lasers over other types include:

 Efficiency : because their optical-to-optical conversion efficiencies range even more than
95%, FL’s are among the most efficient lasers.

 Light is already coupled into a flexible fiber: the fact that the light is already in a fiber allows
it to be easily delivered to a movable focusing element. This is important for laser cutting,
welding, and folding of metals and polymers.

 High output power: Fiber lasers can have active regions several kilometers long, and so can
provide very high optical gain. They can support kilowatt levels of continuous output power
because of the fiber's high surface area to volume ratio, which allows efficient cooling.

 High optical quality: The fiber's waveguiding properties reduce or eliminate thermal distortion
of the optical path, typically producing a diffraction-limited, high-quality optical beam.

20
 Compact size: Fiber lasers are compact compared to rod or gas lasers of comparable power,
because the fiber can be bent and coiled to save space.

 Reliability: Fiber lasers exhibit high vibrational stability, extended lifetime, and maintenance-
free turnkey operation.

 High peak power and nanosecond pulses enable effective marking and engraving.

 The additional power and better beam quality provide cleaner cut edges and faster cutting
speeds.

 Lower cost of ownership.

 Fiber lasers are now being used to make high-performance surface-acustic wave (SAW)
devices. These lasers raise throughput and lower cost of ownership in comparison to older
solid-state laser technology.

Figure 2.3: a datasheet of a commercial fiber laser

In order to make more clear these advantages of FLs compared to their bulk counterpart, it is very
important to consider an example. In typical solid-state laser-pumped lasers , the active length of
the laser material is at most few centimeters. Just to give an idea of this, let us suppose that we
have a single- mode (SM) 2mm-diameter collimated Gaussian beam from a 808-nm laser to pump
a Nd3+-doped glass laser. If we want to produce a 6-μm beam waist (2w0) in the middle of the
glass, an 11.7 mm focal length lens would be necessary as illustrated in Figure 2.4.

Figure 2.4: typical scheme of a bulk laser

21
In order to assure the oscillation of the cavity with such a tiny active region, the reflectivities of
both mirrors would be close to 100 % because lower reflectivities means high cavity loss to
overcome by the cavity gain. Let us say that the high reflector (HR) is 100 % and the output
coupler (OC) has 99%. In this way, it will only deliver 1% of the signal generated inside the cavity.
In addition to that, the glass surfaces may need anti-reflection coating to reduce loss from the air-
glass interfaces. This would be an inefficient system delivering <1% of the total signal generated by
the cavity, i.e. less than 1mW for 100 mW pump power. Any attempt to extract more power, let’s
say replacing the OC to 95 % to produce ≤5 mW, would most possibly lead to:
a) no oscillation at all;
b) oscillation with very unstable behavior;
c) higher pump power threshold for oscillation.

Let us now introduce some changes to our system. Suppose the replacement of the glass bulk by a
6 μm core Nd3+-doped optical fiber as in Figure 2.5 , the mirrors attached (or deposited) at the
fiber flat ends, and the pump signal focused at one end (the HR transparent for this signal).

Figure 2.5: a Fiber Laser

Now we have a sufficiently large material that more efficiently absorbs the pump and has a larger
gain length (usually from tens of cm to hundreds of meters) with a total overlap of the beams. In
such high-gain cavity, it is possible to change the OC to extract more than 50 % of the optical
power. These changes briefly describe the upgrade from conventional bulk lasers to RE-doped
fiber lasers (REDFL’s). Coiled optical fibers mean much larger fiber-cavities occupying a modest
space. Apart from being very stable, FL‘s that deliver up to some watts, easily connect to a fiber-
link and most have an excellent, usually circular, beam quality. The enlarged active volume (the
fiber core) is in the center of a fine glass strand (the optical fiber) and because the ratio of the
fiber surface to the active volume is immense the heath produced in the active volume easily

22
dissipates through the large surface. This makes these systems not to require cooling systems
when delivering up to some watts. These unique characteristics make them among the best
candidates for the development of new laser sources. In fact, the limitations of laser diodes, such
as low power and poor beam quality were overcome by the invention of the double-cladd optical
fiber. On that guiding structure, the low-quality pump-beam provided by an array of laser diodes
couples into a very large core (up to 125 microns and sometimes non-circular) and as it
propagates, it pumps the single-mode RE-doped core (usually at the center). The single-mode
signals emitted by such multimode-excited core preferentially amplify along its axis. In this way,
the low quality beam transforms into a high-quality one.

2.2: Block-scheme of a fiber laser

2.2.1:Block-scheme of a typical laser

A laser in general is constructed from three principal parts:

Figure 2.2.1:Schematic diagram of a typical laser, showing the three major parts

 An energy source( usually referred to as the pump source): the pump source is the part that
provides energy to the laser system. Examples of pump sources include electrical
discharges, flashlamps, arc lamps, light from another laser, chemical reactions and even
explosive devices. The type of pump source used principally depends on the gain medium,
and this also determines how the energy is transmitted to the medium. For example,
a helium-neon (HeNe) laser uses an electrical discharge in the helium-neon gas mixture, a
Nd:YAG laser uses either light focused from a xenon flash lamp or diode lasers, and excimer
lasers use a chemical reaction.

23
 Figure 2.2.2: Argon flashlamp spectral line radiation, and spectral output of various gases

 A gain medium, or laser medium: the gain medium is the major determining factor of the
wavelength of operation, and other properties, of the laser. Gain media in different
materials have linear spectra or wide spectra. The gain medium is excited by the pump
source to produce a population inversion, and it is in the gain medium that spontaneous
and stimulated emission of photons takes place, leading to the phenomenon of optical
gain, or amplification.
Examples of different gain media include:

 Liquids, such as dye lasers. These are usually organic chemical solvents, such
as methanol, ethanol or ethylene glycol, to which are added chemical dyes such
as coumarin, rhodamine, and fluorescein. The exact chemical configuration of the dye
molecules determines the operation wavelength of the dye laser.
 Gases, such as carbon dioxide, argon, krypton and mixtures such as helium-neon.
These lasers are often pumped by electrical discharge.
 Solids, such as crystals and glasses. The solid host materials are usually doped with an
impurity such as chromium, neodymium, erbium or titanium ions.
 Semiconductors, a type of solid, crystal with uniform dopant distribution or material
with differing dopant levels in which the movement of electrons can cause laser action.
Semiconductor lasers are typically very small, and can be pumped with a simple electric
current, enabling them to be used in consumer devices such as compact disc players.

 Two or more mirrors that form an optical resonator: the optical resonator, or optical
cavity, in its simplest form is two parallel mirrors placed around the gain medium which
provide feedback of the light. The mirrors are given optical coatings which determine their
reflective properties. Typically one will be a high reflector, and the other will be a partial
reflector. The latter is called the output coupler, because it allows some of the light to
leave the cavity to produce the laser's output beam. Light from the medium, produced
by spontaneous emission, is reflected by the mirrors back into the medium, where it may
be amplified by stimulated emission. The light may reflect from the mirrors and thus pass
through the gain medium many hundreds of times before exiting the cavity. In more
complex lasers, configurations with four or more mirrors forming the cavity are used. The

24
 design and alignment of the mirrors with respect to the medium is crucial to determining
the exact operating wavelength and other attributes of the laser system. Other optical
devices, such as spinning mirrors, modulators, filters, and absorbers, may be placed within
the optical resonator to produce a variety of effects on the laser output, such as altering
the wavelength of operation or the production of pulses of laser light.
Some lasers do not use an optical cavity, but instead rely on very high optical gain to produce
significant amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) without needing feedback of the light back into
the gain medium. Such lasers are said to be superluminescent, and emit light with
low coherence but high bandwidth. Since they do not use optical feedback, these devices are
often not categorized as lasers.

2.2.2: Fiber laser

A more simplified view of Figure 2.5 is this one:

Figure 2.2.2.1: Typical configuration of a fiber laser. The mirror HC has high transmission for the
pump wavelength( ) and high reflection for the laser signal ( ); the mirror OC partially reflects
and the transmitted part is the laser signal.

The pumping signal excites the atoms of the medium into a higher energy level to create
population inversion that means amplification and therefore lasing. The pump is usually provided
by another laser. In the picture, the pump source is a diode pumped fiber laser system operating
at 1064-nm wavelength and the active material is an Ho3+ -doped optical fiber.
The optical cavity is created by two mirrors arranged such that the light amplifies as it travels back
and forth through the gain medium. Regularly one of the two mirrors (the output coupler) is
partially transparent with the purpose that part of the signal is emitted through it. Various types of
mirrors are used in linear fiber laser resonators:

25
 Figure 2.2.2.2: A simple erbium-doped femtosecond laser, where the Fresnel reflection from a
fiber end is used for output coupling.
 In simple laboratory setups, ordinary dielectric mirrors can be butted to the perpendicularly
cleaved fiber ends. This approach, however, is not very practical for mass fabrication and not very
durable either.
 The Fresnel reflection from a bare fiber end face is often sufficient for the output coupler of a fiber
laser. Figure (2.2.2.2) shows an example.
 It is also possible to deposit dielectric coatings directly on fiber ends, usually with some
evaporation method. Such coatings can be used to realize reflectivities in a wide range.
 For commercial products, it is common to use fiber Bragg gratings, made either directly in the
doped fiber, or in an undoped fiber which is spliced to the active fiber. Figure 2.2.2.3 shows a
distributed Bragg reflector laser (DBR laser) with two fiber gratings, but there are also distributed
feedback lasers with a single grating in doped fiber, with a phase shift in the middle.

Figure 2.2.2.3: Short DBR fiber laser for narrow-linewidth emission

 A better power-handling capability is achieved by collimating the light exiting the fiber with
a lens and reflecting it back with a dielectric mirror (Figure 2.2.2.4). The intensities on the
mirror are then greatly reduced due to the much larger beam area. However, slight
misalignment can cause substantial reflection losses, and the additional Fresnel reflection
at the fiber end can introduce filter effects and the like. The latter effects can be
suppressed by using angle-cleaved fiber ends, which however introduce polarization-
dependent losses.

Figure 2.2.2.4: End reflector with lens and mirror

26
  Another option is to form a fiber loop mirror (Figure 2.2.2.5), based on a fiber coupler (e.g.
with 50:50 splitting ratio) and some piece of passive fiber.

Figure 2.2.2.5: Fiber loop mirror

Using Bragg gratings as optical cavity, good spectral properties are ensured: is for this reason that
recently , a new strategy has been found in using fiber Bragg grating to create a second, external
cavity to re-inject some of the source(diode) light and lock the laser line and narrow its spectrum.

Figure 2.2.2.6: A Fiber Bragg grating structure, with refractive index profile, and spectral response.

In the next picture it is shown how also the numerical aperture is important for the description of
the behavior of a fiber laser:

Figure 2.2.2.7:how a fiber laser works

27
High power fiber lasers usually base on double-clad fiber which consists of three layers, i.e., a
single-mode core doped by rare-earth element, an inner silica cladding, and an outer cladding with
lower index comparing to that of inner cladding. The inner cladding with large area and numerical
aperture (NA) will accept a large amount of pump light from multimode laser diode sources, the
coupled pump light is well absorbed in the doped core along the long length of the cavity and thus
efficiently utilized. Recent years, with the improvement of high-power multimode
diode and the development of double-clad fiber, the output power of high power fiber lasers
increases greatly.

2.3: Fiber lasers vs. bulk lasers

It is natural to compare different laser concepts with each other, in particular when they are used
in overlapping application areas. This is particularly the case for two different kinds of solid-state
lasers: bulk lasers and fiber lasers. There have been claims that fiber lasers, which have shown
tremendous progress in recent years, will eventually replace most bulk lasers, since they could
reach the same or better performance at a lower price. However, it is then overlooked that they
also face a number of challenges, and depending on the specific goals these may outweigh the
advantages. The outcome of such a comparison can thus depend strongly on various details of the
specific requirements.
Basic Laser and Optical Properties
The moderate gain and pump absorption per unit length of rare-earth-doped fibers, caused by
limitations to the doping concentration in glasses, requires the use of relatively long gain media,
which has various consequences.
The long length and small effective mode area of fiber lasers lead to strong effects of the Kerr
nonlinearity, despite the relatively small nonlinear index of fused silica (the most popular glass
material for fibers). Particularly in the context of ultrashort pulse generation, but also for single-
frequency lasers and amplifiers, excessive nonlinearity can have very detrimental effects. It often
limits the achievable pulse duration or output power.
Most fiber lasers operate with high gain and high resonator losses. This makes them relatively
immune to additional losses e.g. from various types of intracavity components. For example, a
fiber laser resonator may well contain a grating pair for wavelength tuning without the efficiency
being degraded too much by the introduced resonator losses. On the other hand, the small
resonator losses of many bulk lasers make them interesting for intracavity frequency doubling and
can lead to lower phase noise.
Many fiber devices are subject to problems with uncontrolled birefringence. It is not only that this
often changes the polarization state from linear to elliptical; these changes are unfortunately
dependent on temperature and bending. Many fiber lasers therefore may require readjustment of
polarization controllers when the temperature changes. This may be acceptable for laboratory
use, but often not for commercial devices. One does not always have the option to eliminate such
problems by using polarization-maintaining fibers, since special fibers and fiber devices are often

28
not available in this form, and e.g. mode locking with nonlinear polarization rotation would not
work with a polarization-maintaining fiber.
Aspects Concerning High-power Devices
Both fiber and bulk lasers can generate multi-kilowatt powers. The power conversion efficiency of
fiber devices can be very high, and is often significantly better than that of bulk lasers. On the
other hand, fiber devices require pump sources with a higher beam quality and brightness,
compared with pump diodes for bulk lasers, generally increasing the price per watt of the pump
source.
The geometry of fibers and their built-in waveguide effect essentially eliminate disturbing thermal
effects (such as thermal lensing) and thus make it possible to achieve an excellent beam
quality even at very high power levels. This is generally more difficult with bulk lasers, but some
bulk laser concepts (in particular that of the thin-disk laser) have the potential for even higher
single-mode powers.
Nonlinearities can limit the performance of high-power fiber devices in various ways, particularly
in the context of pulse generation. A hard peak power limit in pulsed fiber devices is introduced
by self-focusing. The Raman effect is also strong in fibers and can be a limiting factor also for high-
power continuous-wave fiber lasers. In single-frequency operation, stimulated Brillouin
scattering introduces severe limitations. All these limits are generally much less severe for bulk
laser devices, where nonlinearities can be weaker by orders of magnitude.
Short Pulse Generation
Both fiber and bulk lasers can be Q-switched for generating nanosecond pulses. The shortest
pulse durations are usually achieved with bulk lasers, as the gain per unit length is smaller for
fiber devices. Also, fiber devices are limited in terms of peak power.
High-power nanosecond laser systems based on fibers often contain some seed laser and a fiber
amplifier, allowing for very high average power while still being limited in terms of peak power. In
principle, very short seed pulses could be amplified, but the seed pulses often have to be made
long enough to keep the peak power sufficiently low.
Fiber lasers are based on rare-earth-doped glass fibers, which offer a high amplification
bandwidth compared with rare-earth-doped laser crystals. The fiber format allows the use of
glasses without suffering from their lower thermal conductivity (because of the geometry and
the waveguide effect) and their typically lower laser cross sections (because of the ease of
obtaining a high gain in a fiber). As a result, fiber lasers can have very broad wavelength
tunability and can generate very short optical pulses via passive mode locking. However, mode-
locked fiber lasers often cannot utilize the full potential of the gain bandwidth in terms of pulse
duration because of the detrimental effects of excessive nonlinearities and higher-order chromatic
dispersion.
Fiber lasers can be mode-locked using nonlinear polarization rotation, which is an effective
technique and less critical than additive-pulse mode locking of bulk lasers. However, such lasers
are usually not long-term stable due to thermal variations of the birefringence.

29
For fiber lasers with high (multi-gigahertz) pulse repetition rates, one usually requires the
technique of harmonic mode locking, which makes the laser setup significantly more complicated
than that of a compact bulk laser.
Sensitivity to Optical Feedback
High-power fiber devices for material processing are often very sensitive to optical feedback. One
reason is that such devices are often master oscillator power amplifiers, so that the backreflected
light is even amplified on its way back to the seed laser. In addition, the effective mode areas fairly
small, so that fiber ends are easily destroyed. It is possible to use a Faraday isolator for preventing
backreflected light from reaching the fiber, but this is not always practical, particularly at high
power levels.
In many cases, one does not use an isolator, and then has to ensure that back-reflections are
avoided e.g. by never allowing for normal incidence on a workpiece. This, however, can restrict
the flexibility and possibly the processing quality.
Robustness and Cost
Simple fiber laser setups can be made from relatively cheap components, and they need fewer
mechanical components. Ideally, a fiber laser setup should be made with fibers only, not involving
any air space. Where this is possible, and processes such as fusion splicing of fiber components can
be largely automated, fiber lasers can be significantly cheaper and smaller than bulk lasers. The
output may then conveniently be delivered to a fiber connector, which allows easy connection to
other devices without any alignment procedures.
However, the use of air spaces in fiber laser resonators often cannot be avoided, e.g. when certain
bulk optical elements need to be inserted into the laser resonator, or fibers with very different
mode areas are used and tapered fibers for mode area adaptation are not available. In such cases,
the tight alignment tolerance of single-mode fibers and sometimes the high optical intensities at
fiber ends may make the setup less robust than that of a bulk laser, and the cost may also not be
low.
Maintenance is often not required by fiber devices. In the case of a defect, however, an all-fiber
setup can make it relatively difficult to locate and exchange the defect part. On the other hand, it
is easy to exchange fiber-optic components if fiber connectors are used.
The cost for developing a fiber-based laser system is often higher, and the required time is longer.
This is partly because it can be difficult to procure special parts, and sometimes (particularly
for ultrafast lasers) because the operation principles of fiber lasers are more complicated than
those of bulk lasers. Also, it is easier to combine different components in a bulk-optical setup, or
to insert or remove parts for diagnostic reasons.
Uncertainties in Parameters
During the development of a laser system, difficulties can arise if relevant parameters of the gain
medium are not known precisely.
For laser crystals as used in a bulk laser, there is a limited set of parameters such as doping
concentration, spectroscopic data and geometric parameters. For common crystal materials, the

30
 uncertainties are usually small, whereas spectroscopic data are often uncertain for less common
materials.
For rare-earth-doped fibers, the situation is generally less satisfactory. A first reason is that a fiber
consists of glass material where the composition is less well defined. Even the manufacturer may
not know exactly the amount of germanate in the core of a germanosilicate fiber, for example, and
often the exact composition is not revealed to customers. In addition, a fiber has additional
parameters such as the core diameter or refractive index profile which can be uncertain and vary
between different samples.
Laser beam divergence and diameter of the beam
The laser beam emerging from a laser tube has a certain amount of divergence as schematically
illustrated in the following picture:

The output laser beam has a divergence characterized by the angle 2θ (highly exaggerated in the
figure)

We can assume that the laser beam emanates like a light-cone, with an apex angle 2θ , from the
end of the laser tube, that is then the divergence of the beam . If Δr is the increase in the radius of
the beam over a distance L, then by definition of divergence:

From this relation it is possible to calculate the diameter 2 Δr of the beam at a given distance L.

Some Guidelines
Some general guidelines for determining in which areas fiber lasers or bulk lasers may be stronger
are as follows:
 Fiber lasers are suitable for generating very high average powers with high beam quality. This
holds particularly for unusual wavelengths, where no good bulk crystals or glasses are available.
Fiber lasers are clearly superior for difficult lasing schemes such as low-gain transitions or
upconversion. However, bulk lasers are required for some other spectral regions; for example,
there is no fiber laser to replace a broadly tunable Ti: sapphire laser in the region of 700–1000 nm.
 Bulk lasers have a higher potential for high pulse energies and peak powers either with Q
switching or with mode locking.

31
 Bulk lasers can utilize pump sources with very poor beam quality. In the most extreme case,
a side-pumped rod laser can be pumped with discharge lamps. This can be advantageous e.g.
when very high peak powers in pulses with moderate repetition rates are required.
 Bulk lasers are often preferable when a stable linear polarization is required (and polarization-
maintaining fibers cannot be used for some reason).
 For ultrashort pulse generation, bulk lasers make it easier to achieve a high peak power and a high
pulse quality in terms of smooth spectral shape, low chirp and low background.
 In terms of fabrication cost, fiber lasers will often be superior for devices with low demands on
peak power, polarization, emission bandwidth, pulse quality, etc. However, more stringent
demands of such type can often favor a bulk laser, as a fiber device would require complicated
additional measures or very special parts. Also, the often higher development cost of fiber-based
devices can be a problem in cases with small sales numbers.
The points discussed show clearly that both bulk and fiber lasers have significant advantages and
disadvantages, so that one or the other concept can be superior depending on the particular
circumstances.

2.4: Optical, mechanical, electrical and environmental specifications of a

fiber laser
In this section some design and specifications of a fiber laser are taken to commercial products,
and illustrated in order to have an idea of the order of magnitude of the several parameters. Some
pictures are also shown.

Optical specifications

 Output power (10W 50W)

 Output Power Adjustment(10-100%)
 Power Stability Maximum(≤ ±2.5 %)
 Beam Quality(M2≤ 1.3)

32
  Beam Divergence(≤ 1.0 mrad)
 Output Beam Diameter(5.0 ± 0.5 mm)
 Visible Pointer(No pointer, Red pointer etc)
 Mode of Operation(CW,Modulated)
 Polarization(Random)
 Power Modulation(Digital)
 Digital Output Modulation Frequency(≤ 10 kHz)
 Rise Time(≤ 50 µs)
 Fall Time(≤ 50 µs)
 Turn-on Time(≤ 200 µs)
 Turn-off Time(≤ 50 µs)
 Central Wavelength(1064.0 ± 2.0 nm)
 Emission Linewidth(1.0 nm)

Mechanical specifications
 Delivery Fiber Length(5 m)
 Output Cable Minimum Bend Radius(30 mm)
 Output Cable Type(Armored cable)
 Dimensions (LxWxH) (284 x 215 x 95 mm)
 Weight(5.5 kg)

Electrical specifications
 DC Supply Voltage(22 – 26 VDC)
 Current Consumption(≤ 4.0 A)
 Digital Interfaces(RS-232)

33
Environmental specifications
 Operating Ambient Temperature(0 to 40 °C)
 Storage Temperature(-10 to 60 °C)
 Operating Humidity(10 to 85 % RH non-condensing)
 Warm-up Time(10 sec)
 Cooling(Air cooled)

34
35
2.5: Modeling of a quasi two-level fiber laser: the optimal length of the FB
As introduced on chapter 1, three-level pumping amplifying systems may be studied as quasi two-
level when absorption and emission spectra overlap. When the pump system is realized, it can
happen that a huge level of pump power is not absorbed( and so transferred to the signal) but
emitted outside, and this depends on the length of the optical fiber. So the goal of this section is
to estimate the optimal length of the fiber. Considering Figure 2.2.2.1, and all the argumentation
in chapter 1, along a fiber laser there are two stimulated-emission generated signals that
propagate in opposite directions. The total (normalized) power at any point z is:

36
Where:

Using the propagation equation (1.2.2.23) for the forward propagating signal, we may write:

The ratio of the propagation equations gives:

Now let establish the limits for the integration under the aid of the following picture:

Figure 2.5.1:Normalized power of propagating signals along a quasi two-level fiber laser

The left part is from to . As regards right part, for z=0 the power is q0 and for
z= the gain saturates and stops growing: this implies that d /dz=0. Integrating:

In which, being and respectively the HR and OC reflectivities:

37
Solving , we obtain:

Figure 2.5.2: Typical emission spectrum of a doped fiber laser when pumped at 1117nm

Figure 2.5.3: optimal fiber length at 1117-nm pump, 1175-nm pump

2.6: Noise in Fiber Laser : kinds, quantification and minimization

Lasers can exhibit various kinds of "noise", with manifold influences on applications. Here we
discuss where such noise can come from, how it is quantified and how its influences can be
minimized. “Noise” of lasers is a short term for random fluctuations of various output parameters.
This is a frequently encountered phenomenon which has a profound impact on many applications
in photonics, particularly in the area of precision measurements. Consider e.g. interferometric
position measurements, which can be directly affected by fluctuations of the optical phase, or
spectroscopic measurements of transmission, where intensity fluctuations limit the possible

38
 sensitivity. Similarly, the date rate and the transmission distance for fiber-optic links are at least
partly limited by noise issues.

Figure 2.6.1: Intensity noise spectrum of a single-frequency fiber laser

There are different kinds of laser noise, according to the typology of fiber laser considered:
 In a single-frequency laser, there are intensity noise (or amplitude noise) and phase noise. The
latter causes a finite laser linewidth, and is strongly related to frequency noise. It also limits the
temporal coherence.
 In a laser operating on multiple resonator modes, there is usually strong mode beating noise and
also mode partition noise, i.e., fluctuations of the power distribution over the resonator modes.
The power in one of these modes may fluctuate much more than the total power.
 A mode-locked laser exhibits noise in the temporal position of the pulses , that is timing jitter but
also noise in the center frequency, pulse duration, and chirp. For harmonic mode locking, there is
also so-called supermode noise.
 Any laser can exhibit beam point fluctuations .

The origins of laser noise can be divided into two groups:

 Quantum noise, in particular associated with spontaneous emission in the gain medium
 technical noise, arising e.g. from excess noise of the pump source, from vibrations of the laser
resonator, or from temperature fluctuations
Intensity noise is usually understood to quantify fluctuations of the laser output power, and in
most cases normalized to the average power. The measurement is based on recording the

39
 temporally varying output power, using a photodiode, for example. It is quantified by the square
root of the average of the squared power fluctuations:

Another problem is that the registered fluctuations can strongly depend on the
measurement bandwidth. For example, a laser may exhibit fast fluctuations of the output power,
which are seen by a fast photodetector, while being averaged out and thus not registered by a
slower detector. Furthermore, a limited measurement time may not be sufficient to detect slow
fluctuations (drifts); essentially, one does not know how far the average power in the chosen time
interval deviates from the average over longer times. For these reasons, a simple number without
specification of a measurement bandwidth (lower and upper noise frequency) is actually
meaningless and should never occur in a data sheet. The measurement bandwidth may extend
from some very small frequency, limited by the inverse measurement time, to some maximum
frequency, determined by the speed of the detector.
Phase noise is related to fluctuations of the optical phase of the output. Simple as this sounds, the
optical phase may not even be defined for a laser oscillating on multiple resonator modes.
The measurement of phase noise or the linewidth is substantially more difficult than that of
intensity noise, partly because the phase evolution must be compared with some reference. A
conceptually simple but often impractical method is based on measuring a beat note of the laser
with a second laser, exhibiting a similar optical frequency (keeping the beat frequency low
enough) and much lower phase noise. Alternatively, two similar lasers may be used, and the
relative phase noise provides an estimate for the noise of a single laser.

Figure 2.6.2:Setup for the phase noise measurement. The mirrors next to the acousto-optic modulator
(AOM) have a reflectivity of e.g. 50%. The detector records the beat note between the frequency-shifted
part and the delayed part of the laser light. This contains information on phase noise and linewidth.

Laser noise can be reduced in many ways:

 Quantum noise can be reduced e.g. by increasing the intracavity power level and by minimizing
optical losses.
 Technical noise influences can be reduced, e.g. by building a stable laser resonator, by
temperature stabilization of the setup, or by using a low-noise pump source.

40
 Laser parameters can be optimized so that the laser reacts less strongly to certain noise
influences.
 phase variations may be suppressed, e.g. with an optical filter.
A prerequisite for effective noise reduction is that the origin of the most disturbing noise is known,
in addition to the parameters determining the laser's sensitivity to thus noise influences.
Depending on the case, it can be more effective to reduce either noise influences themselves or
the laser's sensitivity.

41
 CHAPTER 3

MATERIALS AND SEVERAL TYPOLOGIES OF

FIBER LASERS
3.1: Yb3+ high power double-clad fiber laser and MCVD
Lasers with high output powers are required for a number of applications, e.g. for
 material processing (welding, cutting, drilling, soldering, marking, surface modification)
 large-scale laser displays (→ RGB sources)
 remote sensing (e.g. with LIDAR)
 medical applications (e.g. surgery)
 military applications (e.g. anti-missile weapons)
 fundamental science (e.g. particle acceleration)
 laser-induced nuclear fusion (e.g. in the NIF project)
There is no commonly accepted definition of the property “high power”; in the context of laser
material processing, it usually means multiple kilowatts or at least a few hundred watts, whereas
for laser displays some tens of watts many already be considered high. In some areas, this label is
assigned simply for generating a significantly higher output power than other lasers based on the
same technology; for example, some “high-powered” laser pointers emit a few hundred
milliwatts, whereas ordinary laser pointers are limited to a few milliwatts.
Recent years, with the improvement of high-power multimode diode and the development of
double-clad fiber, the output power of high power fiber lasers increases greatly . Yb3+ is the
favorite lasing ion because of the long lifetime of the excited state, the simple energy-level
scheme and the small quantum defect between the pump and laser wavelength. Silica glass and
high silica glasses, made by gas phase deposition processes, have the main importance as host
glass so far because of their unequalled properties such as extremely low optical losses, high
radiation hardness and extraordinary mechanical strength, although silica is in principle not very
advantageous as host for rare-earths and as laser medium, and its properties must be improved by
suitable co-doping. These particular fibers are realized with the MCVD (modified chemical vapor
deposition) , here described.
At first, a flocculent deposit is formed from a gaseous mixture of SiCl4, POCl3 and O2 on the inner
surface of quartz glass carrier tubes with outer and inner diameter of 14 and 11.5 mm,
respectively. This deposit is presintered in a pure oxygen atmosphere at a temperature of

42
1330 °C in order to generate a defined relative density of 20% compared with a fully densified
layer. This layer is impregnated with an aqueous solution of YbCl3 and AlCl3, dried in subsequent
preparation steps at room temperature and at about 1000°C, again in a pure oxygen
atmosphere, and at 1400 °C under Cl2/O2 atmosphere. After a sintering step at 2000 °C with O2, a
glassy layer with a thickness of about 12 lm is built up on the inner tube surface. In order to
complete the fiber preform, the tube is collapsed by two burner passes at about 2250 °C to a solid
rod where the doped layers have formed the preform core with a diameter of about 0.7 mm
(outer preform diameter 8 mm). In the standard case, the collapsing is accomplished in a Cl2/O2
atmosphere. (As usual in the MCVD process, all steps have been performed with a moving
oxy-hydrogen torch and a flowing gas atmosphere inside the tube-disregarding the last collapsing
step.)
With this technique , we can obtain very low absorption coefficient for a large spectrum of λ, as
the following figure shows:

Figure 3.1.1: perform absorbtion spectra in UV/VIS and NIR

43
It is been analytically derived [4] that the output power of these types of FB is:

The threshold pump power is:

In these expressions, is given by:

Figure 3.1.2: Fiber laser characteristic curves

Figure 3.1.3:Structure of a modern double-clad fiber with an air cladding

44
 Figure 3.1.4:Threshold pump power as a function of Yb concentration at different condition of (a)
fiber length, (b)R2, (c) pump wavelength, (d) laser wavelength

Figure 3.1.5: The spectrum of Yb3+ doped double-clad fiber lasers

3.1.1:Launching the Pump Light

There are several options for launching pump light at very high power levels. The simplest is to
launch directly into the pump cladding at one or both fiber ends. This technique does not require
special fiber components; however, it needs the propagation of the high-power pump radiation
through air (with free-space optics) and particularly through an air–glass interface, which is then
very sensitive to dust and misalignment. In many cases, it is therefore preferable to use one of
several techniques where one employs fiber-coupled pump diodes and keeps the pump light in
fibers from there on. One option is to launch the pump light into passive (undoped) fibers which
are wound around the active fiber so that the light is gradually transferred into the active fiber
(GTWave fiber). Other techniques are based on special pump combiner devices, where several
pump fibers and a single active signal fiber are fused together. Yet other approaches are based on
side-pumped fiber coils (fiber disk lasers) , or on grooves in the pump cladding through which

45
pump light can be injected. The latter technique allows for multi-point pump injection and thus for
a better distribution of the heat load.

Figure 3.1.1.1: a high-power double-clad fiber amplifier setup ,where pump light launched through
free space into the fiber end. The air–glass interface is critical in terms of alignment and
cleanliness.

3.2: DFB lasers and their only limitation of the quantum noise
Optical fiber distributed-feedback (DFB) lasers using ultraviolet light (UV)-written fiber Bragg
grating on doped fibers are the most important that feature single-frequency operation, thus are
a promising technology for applications in optical fiber communications. Most fiber DFB lasers,
however, actually operate in two orthogonal polarizations as a result of polarization independent
in the fiber DFB lasers, which is not desirable for these applications
A distributed feedback laser (DFB) is a type of laser diode, quantum cascade laser or optical fiber
laser where the active region of the device is periodically structured as a diffraction grating, which
provides the optical feedback for the laser: this diffraction structure is essentially the direct
concatenation of two Bragg gratings with optical gain within the gratings.

Figure 3.2.1: The interferometric rings of the laser with a concatenation of two FBGs, transmitted
by a FP interferometer and recorded by a set of monitor system

46
 These types of lasers are often used in sensing applications where extreme narrow line width is
required.

Figure 3.2.2: The output optical spectrum of a Yb-doped DFB fiber laser

A laser can be made to operate on a single mode of its resonator, and is then called a single-
frequency laser. The linewidth of the laser radiation can then be very small – often only a few
kilohertz – and the coherence length accordingly long. In contrast, multimode operation causes
the linewidth to be a multiple of the mode spacing (free spectral range) of the resonator. Single-
frequency operation is required to drive resonant cavities (e.g. for efficient frequency doubling in
an external enhancement cavity), for high-resolution spectroscopy, for coherent beam
combining of laser outputs, and for applications where the intensity noise must be very low. The
emission linewidth can be extremely small for single-frequency operation – far below the
longitudinal mode spacing of the resonator, and many orders of magnitude below the gain
bandwidth. The ONLY theoretical limit is the Schawlow–Townes linewidth, (determined
by quantum noise), that is the quantum limit for the linewidth of a laser:

with the photon energy h ν, the resonator bandwidth Δνc (half width at half-maximum, HWHM),
and the output power Pout. It has been assumed that there are no parasitic cavity losses. Note that
the result is interpreted as a half width at half-maximum.

Whereas the noise performance of electronic systems is often limited by thermal noise, quantum-
mechanical effects often set the limits for optical systems. This is basically because owing to the
high optical frequencies the photon energy in the optical domain is much higher than the thermal
energy kB T at room temperature. According to quantum mechanics, the electric field of a light
beam is described by quantum mechanical operators, and the outcome of optical measurements
does not simply reflect the expectation values of these operators, but is also subject to quantum
fluctuations. Typical effects of this quantum noise are:

47
 some intensity noise (shot noise), phase noise, and a finite linewidth even in the output of a
(hypothetical) single-frequency laser which is not subject to any technical noise such as mirror
vibrations; unavoidable excess noise in optical amplifiers ; spontaneous emission of excited atoms
or ions; spontaneous Raman scattering; parametric fluorescence; partition noise occurring
at beam splitters.

Figure 3.3: The output power versus launched power

3.3: Switchable ytterbium-doped fiber laser based on LFG

Multiwavelength fiber lasers are being subject of continuous interest as an alternative source for
applications in wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical fiber communications systems,
fiber sensors, optical instrument testing, microwave photonic systems and so on. In this sense,
several approaches have been proposed to obtain a multiwavelength oscillation. However, the
main limitation to obtain multiwavelength laser generation in fiber lasers is the homogeneous gain
broadening of the rare-earth dopants which leads a strong mode competition and cross-gain
saturation. Other approaches include the addition into the laser cavity of Fiber Bragg Gratings
(FBGs) written in high birefringence fibers or tilted fiber gratings inscribed in standard fibers to
obtain gain inhomogeneity via polarization hole burning .In these cases, a switchable dual-
wavelength oscillation can be obtained manipulating the light polarization into the laser cavity,
although the laser emissions depend strongly on the polarization dependent gain of the rare-earth
in the doped fiber. On the other hand, Long-Period Fiber Gratings (LPFGs) have demonstrated
their utility as reshaping filters in tunable and multiwavelength rare-earth doped-fiber lasers.
LPFGs can be mechanically induced using corrugated grooved plates, strings, and springs. These
mechanical methods produce a periodical stress on the optical fiber that induces the periodical
modulation required in order to produce the grating. Mechanically induced LPFGs, (MLPFGs), can
be used as reshaping filters with broad tuning, flexible band configuration, and low insertion loss.
In particular, MLPFGs induced in photonic crystal fibers (also called holey fibers) offer novel
spectral transmission response not observed in conventional fibers, for example, the splitting of
the rejection bands, ultra wide tunable bands, and control of the temperature sensitivity according
with the structure design. An example is next depicted:

48
 Figure 3.3.1:Three-wavelength fiber laser

Figure 3.3.2: Transmission spectrum of the LPHFG at different twist of the holey fiber, obtained
using a OSA with 50pm resolution

49
3.4: Pulsed Fiber Lasers

3.4.1: Mode-locked Fiber Lasers

More sophisticated resonator setups are used particularly for mode-locked fiber lasers ,
generating picosecond or femtosecond pulses. Here, the laser resonator may contain an
active modulator or some kind of saturable absorber. An artificial saturable absorber can be
constructed using the effect of nonlinear polarization rotation, or a nonlinear fiber loop mirror. A
nonlinear loop mirror is used e.g. in a “figure-of-eight laser”, as shown in Figure 2.4.1.1 , where
there is a main resonator on the left-hand side and a nonlinear fiber loop, which does the
amplification, shaping and stabilization of a circulating ultrashort pulse.

Figure 3.4.1.1: A mode-locked fiber laser

3.4.2: Q-switched Fiber Lasers

With various methods of active or passive Q switching, fiber lasers can be used for generating
pulses with durations which are typically between tens and hundreds of nanoseconds. The pulse
energy achievable with large mode area fibers can be several millijoules, in extreme cases tens of
millijoules, and is essentially limited by the saturation energy (even for large mode area fibers) and
by the damage threshold (the latter particularly for shorter pulses). All-fiber setups (not containing
any free-space optics) are quite limited in terms of the achievable pulse energy, as they can
normally not be realized with large mode area fibers and effective Q switches. Due to the high
laser gain, the details of Q switching a fiber laser are often qualitatively different from those of
a bulk laser, and more complicated.

Figure 3.4.2:Simple Q-switched fiber laser

50
3.5: The Fiber Disk Laser

Fiber lasers are a very convenient source of highly focused light for industrial applications, as they
not only offer efficient operation, but are also compact, lightweight and resistant to shock.
Currently, most designs of high-power Fiber lasers are based on rare-earth-doped optical Fiber
that features a double layer of glass cladding and is end-pumped by a laser diode. Such lasers offer
extremely efficient operation, but the small surface area of the Fiber -end limits the maximum
output power that can be achieved to around 1 kW. Although the use of higher-power pump
diodes or multiple fiber -coupled diodes can help increase the output power of the Fiber laser,
these approaches are not ideal as they are costly to implement. To overcome these issues,
Hamamatsu Photonics K. K. Laser Group has recently developed the Fiber Disk Laser. This unique
design is so named because the optical Fiber is coiled into the shape of a flat disk; this special
geometry brings several performance benefits. The result is a source that is capable of delivering
high-power output while retaining the attractive qualities of lower-power, conventional Fiber
lasers. A schematic of the Fiber Disk Laser can be seen in the picture. The coiled fiber is pumped
by several laser diodes. The light enters the fiber from the periphery and is gradually absorbed
by the core as it passes through the disk. The laser output exits from the end of the fiber.

Figure 3.5.1:Schematic of the Fiber Disk Laser

In contrast to conventional designs in which the pump light is delivered through the ends or sides
of a longitudinal fiber, the coiled-disk-pumping scheme offers a much larger area for introducing
pump light. As a consequence, the design is compatible with wide-area, high-power laser diode
bars, which consist of a linear array of single emitters. This compatibility means that the pump
power can be significantly increased at low cost, which opens the door to cost-effective and

51
convenient scaling of fiber laser output power. Furthermore, flat heat sinks can be attached to the
top and bottom surfaces of the fiber disk for convenient and effective cooling. Hamamatsu
Photonics are currently investigating the performance of a Fiber Disk Laser that is doped with the
rare-earth ytterbium (Yb3+). This laser combines high-power output with high quantum efficiency
and slope efficiency.. Figure 3.5.2 shows the input/output characteristics measured in laser tests.
The emission wavelength is approximately 1,100 nm, with a continuous wave output power of 580
W from the fiber end and a slope efficiency of around 69%. The laser's beam parameter product is
under 10 mm mrad, which provides laser beam quality and power density that are not attainable
with conventional solid and gas lasers.

Figure 3.5.2: fiber characteristic

Figure 3.5.3:Cutting application

52
 CHAPTER 4

SEVERAL APPLICATIONS OF FIBER LASERS

4.1: Advantages and general recent applications of fiber lasers

When established manufacturing sectors, such as the automotive or machine-tool industries, are
asked to invest in a new technology, even one that promises to bring many advantages to their
production processes, they are understandably cautious. So when the fiber laser was launched
onto the market several years ago, adoption was at first slow. But today many manufacturers
around the world understand the advantages of using this unique laser technology and are reaping
the rewards. In industrial markets, the fiber laser has many advantages over the conventional
CO2 or solid-state laser. They are smaller, more efficient, have a high beam quality and a lower
cost of ownership. The lasers are also resistant against vibrations and dust, and because of their
high wall-plug efficiency (more than 30%) air cooling rather than water cooling is often sufficient.
Over the typical lifetime of a source, the total cost of ownership of a fiber laser is estimated to be
approximately half the cost of a CO2 laser and a third of the cost of a YAG or disc laser. Although
initial purchase costs for a fiber laser are generally higher than a CO2 laser with the same output
power, fiber lasers require typically 50% less power for the same processing speed. As fiber lasers
are pumped by reliable laser-diode technology and the laser cavity is incorporated within the fiber
itself, maintenance costs are exceptionally low and there is no need to re-align the cavity optics.
Thanks to their high beam power, small spot size and excellent reliability, fiber lasers suit a wide
range of industrial applications, including welding, cutting, ablation, sintering, engraving and
drilling. In the automotive industry, for example, fiber lasers are now routinely used for remote
welding, where a robot-controlled laser head moves around the workpiece. The objective of
remote welding is to keep the robot moving at high speed and to weld 'on the fly' to maximize
production efficiency. In remote welding applications, a high beam quality is essential because
the laser beam must be able to scan over large distances while maintaining a small spot size.

When processing materials with a high power beam laser, the ability to focus the beam is critical,
because good focusability means a smaller spot size, higher power density and larger depth of
field. When focusability is good, focusing optics with a longer focal length can be used, which in
turn leads to a large work clearance. The focusability of a laser beam is often referred to as the
beam quality, and can be measured in various ways. The beam quality of a solid state laser is often
specified by the beam parameter product (BPP) defined as follows:

53
where is the radius of the beam waist and half the total divergence angle. Low values of BPP
imply high beam quality (ability to focus a small spot).

Penetration versus heat input for fiber laser welding

Penetration versus laser power for fiber laser welding (for constant travel speed in cm/min)

54
Fiber lasers typically offer a working area of about 1 m2 and this can be increased by using larger
scanning apertures. Although CO2 lasers can be used for remote welding they require expensive
bulky optics and the use of helium cover gas, which is also costly. In conventional welding
technologies, such as resistance welding, the robot has to stop at each weld, thus making it
difficult to justify the cost owing to the time involved. A fiber -laser remote welder can perform at
very high speeds without ever stopping the robot.

In the automotive industry typically lasers with output powers between 1 kW and 6 kW are used.
The fiber laser typically requires 50% less laser power than a CO2laser for the same welding speed.
For example automotive high-strength steel can be welded at eight metres per minute with a 5-
kW fiber laser. A big benefit is that the output 'feed' fiber of the laser can be easily connected to
fiber -to- fiber couplers or multi-port beam switches. As a result, one fiber laser equipped with a
beam switch acts as a universal laser tool for many different processing tasks. The approach allows
different feed fibers (with core diameters ranging from 50 μm to 600 μm) to be connected to the
same laser for performing tasks such as cutting, welding, cladding and brazing. Using fibers with
different core diameters, enables the characteristics of the laser beam, such as its spot size and
power density, to be optimized for the application in mind. In addition, by combining different
fiber modules, the output power of a fiber laser can be easily scaled up to multikilowatt powers
while maintaining a high beam quality consisting of low-order modes. Owing to their modular
design, fiber lasers are scalable up to 100 kW output power. IPG Photonics's highest power
installation so far is a 36-kW fiber laser for repair welding in the nuclear industry. In contrast,
high-volume applications typically require from several hundred watts up to 10 kW or even 20 kW.
This level of laser power was not previously available at a wavelength of 1 μm and enables welding
of thick plate at unprecedented speeds. IPG Photonics recently launched the first commercial 3-
kW single-mode fiber laser with a beam parameter product of 0.35 mm mrad, the highest beam
quality available at this power level. This breakthrough, made possible by novel splicing techniques
and proprietary fiber designs, is a world record and opens up opportunities for remote cutting and
weld quality that before could only be achieved with electron-beam welding equipment. As well as
welding, fiber lasers are ideal for two- and three-dimensional cutting and are in position to take
over as the technology of choice in this field. This is due to several factors: their ease of
integration; small footprint; lack of costly beam-delivery optics; excellent cut quality; and the
elimination of maintenance requirements. An example of an application that takes advantage of
these attributes is the processing of hydroformed frames in the automotive industry. Fiber lasers
have supplanted multiple solid-state lasers in this application because they are easily integrated
with robots and eliminate the costs associated with pump-lamp replacement. The high power
densities of 109 W cm−2 for single-mode fiber lasers, enables remote cutting without the need for
any kind of cutting gas, which is required by CO2 lasers. However, the first high-volume industrial
market for fiber lasers has undoubtedly been marking applications. In this market, performance
and price are the most important factors when looking at the replacement of old technologies and
here the fiber laser easily beats traditional technologies such as lamp- and diode-pumped solid-

55
state lasers. They are also capable of marking a range of materials including metals, ceramics,
plastics, semiconductors and glass in various applications.

Another important sector for fiber lasers is micromachining. This market segment offers fiber
lasers a large pool of applications, ranging from fine cutting and welding to drilling, sintering,
engraving and ablation. Fiber lasers have enormous advantages over existing technologies when it
comes to processing fine structures. These advantages include a spot-size diameter of about 10
μm, high power densities and low heat-affected zones.

The production of vascular stents is one application that exploits these benefits. These are metal
implants that are used to hold open damaged arteries in patients with cardiovascular disease. The
majority of stent manufacturers use Nd:YAG lasers to micromachine these tiny devices, but some
manufacturers are now using fiber lasers. fiber lasers are attractive for this application because it
is easy to focus the laser on a very small spot, typically less than 10 μm and the lasers can be
modulated to high frequencies to limit the heat input. In addition, fiber lasers for this task are air-
cooled and very compact, which makes them perfect for the medical-device environment.

In summary, whether they are used for welding large car parts or micromachining tiny medical
stents, fiber lasers have a wealth of attributes that make them valuable in industrial applications.

Figure 4.1.1: the fiber laser’s small spot size and high repetition rate make it ideal for
micromachining delicate medical devices such as these medical stents.

56
 Figure 4.1.2: an increasing
number of automotive manufacturers are realizing the benefits of fiber lasers for welding and
cutting.

4.2: Double-clad fiber laser for particle image velocimetry(PIV)

Of main interest is the development of Q-switched DC fiber lasers that are able to emit a pair of
nanosecond pulses separated by more than 500 ns. The main application of such laser systems is
the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique. PIV is commonly involved in flow measurements
(fluid mechanics and turbulent flow characterizations, combustion). It requires a double- pulse
laser. Commercial systems are the association of two synchronized Nd-doped lasers. An
anamorphous optics allows the generation of laser sheets that are used in velocimetry measure-
ments. But a limitation of these systems is the relative alignment of the two cavities. When laser
sheets are created for flow measurements, the non-superposition of both sheets induces
limitations to the precision of the technique. The design of a system that would be able to emit a
pair of pulses issued from the same cavity would be particularly attractive.

The Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV or more simply) is an optical method of measurement of the
global field of motion of a fluid. It provides, in a certain section of the flow, the projection of the
instantaneous velocity vector field on the same section. The flow is seeded with the tracer
particles ( seeding ) with density close as possible to that of the fluid to be studied , so as to follow
as closely as possible the motion . At this point, the section to be examined is illuminated with two
consecutive pulses of laser light and close together , converted through an optical apparatus in
light blades . The particles refract light , which is captured by a camera , with the help of a
synchronizer . This produces two images of the position of the particles at two different instants ,
close together. Comparing the two images we can obtain the particle displacement vector field on
the plane of the blade of light. Assuming that you have chosen correctly seeding , the particles will
follow the motion of the fluid , so dividing the displacement Δt for the interval between the two
images is obtained by the velocity field of the flow , which will be much closer to the
instantaneous speed as the Δt is small . Crucial in this regard is the choice of the time: if too long,

57
the probability is great that the particles are not brought out of the laser and then resumed in the
second image. Moreover, even in the case of two-dimensional flow, if the interval is too long,
there is a loss of information between the two images and the speed that is obtained is no longer
comparable to the instantaneous speed, but is instead an average speed. On the other hand, if the
interval is too short shift is too small and the noise due to the "noise" and to the imperfect
correlation between the pairs of windows become preponderant compared to the actual
movement itself: as a result, there is a velocity field that does not correspond to the real one. The
value of Δt is of the order of ~ 10 microseconds.

Figure 4.2: optical arrangement of PIV

58
Bibliography

[1] A.Cutolo : Optoelettronica, ottica fotonica e laser, McGraw-Hill Libri Italia srl

[2]S.O Kasap : Optoelectronics and photonics: principles and practices, Prentice Hall, Upple Saddle River

[3]High efficiency , actively Q-switched Er/Yb fiber laser A. Gonza´ lez-Garcı´, B.Ibarra-Escamilla ,
O.Pottiez , E.A.Kuzin , F.Maya-Ordonez , M.Dura´n- Sa´nchez , C.Deng , J.W.Haus , PeterE.Powers

[4] Threshold characteristics of linear cavity Yb3+-doped double-clad fiber laser: Guijun Hu, Chengyu
Shan, Xiaoying Deng, Jun Zhang, Yuzhai Pan, Lijun Wang

[5] Single- to three-wavelength switchable ytterbium-doped fiber laser based on intracavity

induced loss by a long-period holey fiber grating, D.E. Ceballos-Herrera , I.Torres-Gomez ,
A.Martinez-Rios , G.Anzueto-Sanchez , Y.Barmenkov

[6] Double-clad fiber laser design for particle image velocimetry and material science applications:
Driss Mgharaz , NawalRouchdi , AbdelkaderBoulezhar , MarcBrunel

[7] Photonic Devices, Jia-Ming Liu

Sitography

[8]: SCIENCE DIRECT

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleListURL&_method=list&_ArticleListID=-
450557430&_sort=v&_st=25&view=c&_origin=article&_acct=C000057976&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_u
serid=2607107&md5=1a5576e2157e81a5e97fa7acd67a56f7&searchtype=a

[9] RP-PHOTONICS

http://www.rp-photonics.com/

[10] NATURE

http://www.nature.com/index.html

59
APPENDIX 1

Periodic table of elements

The periodic table is a table of the chemical elements in which the elements are arranged by order
of atomic number in such a way that the periodic properties (chemical periodicity) of the elements
are made clear. The standard form of the table includes periods (usually horizontal in the periodic
table) and groups (usually vertical). Elements in groups have some similar properties to each
other. There is no one single or best structure for the periodic table but by whatever consensus
there is, the form used here is very useful. The periodic table is a masterpiece of organized
chemical information. The evolution of chemistry's periodic table into the current form is an
astonishing achievement with major contributions from many famous chemists and other eminent
scientists.

60
 APPENDIX 2 : THE VISIBLE SPECTRUM
The visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that falls between red and violet
including all the colors perceptible to the human eye . The wavelength of visible light in the air goes
approximately from 380 to 760 nm , the corresponding wavelengths in other media , such as water,
decrease in proportion to the refractive index . In terms of frequencies, the visible spectrum ranges from
400 to 790 terahertz . The highest average sensitivity of the human eye probably has at 560 nm (540 THz)
of the electromagnetic spectrum , more or less corresponding to the yellow citrine even though the
average surface temperature of the solar photosphere of 5777 Kelvin gives : a peak at 510 -511 nm ( green -
cyan) outside the Earth's atmosphere ( peak emission wavelength- diagram W.A. Steer ) and an average of
560 nm on Earth because of atmospheric refraction or in the yellow-green solid .Radiation with shorter
wavelength (and therefore higher frequency) are the ultraviolet rays x and gamma rays ; those with greater
length ( and lower frequency) is infrared , microwaves and radio waves . All of these radiations have the
same nature , are in fact all composed of photons. The visible spectrum is the central part of the optical
spectrum that also includes infrared and ultraviolet. The visible spectrum does not contain as you can think
of all the colors that the eye and brain can distinguish : brown, pink , magenta , for example , are absent , as
are obtained by the superposition of different wavelengths .A prism separates light into the colors that
make up the visible spectrum .The visible wavelengths occupy the so-called " optical window " , a region of
the electromagnetic spectrum that can pass through undisturbed Earth's atmosphere ( although as you
know blue is the most popular of the red, giving the sky its characteristic color ) . There are also "windows"
for the near-infrared (NIR) , mid (MIR) and far ( FIR) , but they are beyond the capacity of human
perception.

61
View publication stats