title: Raman-driven destabilization of mode-locked long cavity fiber lasers: fundamental limitations to energy scalability.
abstract: We report on the destabilization of the mode-locking operation of a long cavity fiber laser. We show that the destabilization is accompanied by the abrupt emergence of a strong frequency-downshifted Stokes signal, and simultaneously, we find that the laser output displays characteristics typical of noise-like pulses. We use numerical simulations to illustrate how the Stokes signal grows from stimulated Raman scattering and plays a key role in the destabilization of the laser output. Our results indicate that stimulated Raman scattering may impose an ultimate limit on the energy scalability via cavity lengthening.
authors.affiliation: Physics Department, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. c.aguergaray@auckland.ac.nz
authors.forename: Claude
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Aguergaray
authors.forename: Antoine
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Runge
authors.forename: Miro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Erkintalo
authors.forename: Neil G R
authors.initials: NG
authors.lastname: Broderick