title: Single-frequency laser oscillator with watts-level output power at 1.5 microm by use of a twisted-mode technique.
abstract: We report an all-fiber laser oscillator producing as much as 1.9 W of single-frequency direct output at 1.5 microm. Spatial gain hole burning in the active fiber has been eliminated by use of a twisted-mode cavity approach. The two short pieces of a polarization-maintaining fiber that were spliced to the ends of the active fiber served as ultracompact quarter-wave plates. To our knowledge, the use of such a wave plate to manipulate the polarization state of light inside a fiber laser cavity is reported here for the first time. The laser output is linearly polarized and delivered through a polarization-maintaining fiber pigtail. We believe that the output power of our laser is the highest among all single-frequency fiber laser oscillators reported to date.
authors.affiliation: College of Optical Sciences, The University of Arizona, Tucson 85721, USA. ppolynkin@optics.arizona.edu
authors.forename: Pavel
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Polynkin
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Polynkin
authors.forename: Masud
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mansuripur
authors.forename: Jerome
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Moloney
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Peyghambarian