Q-switching of Er/sup 3+//Yb/sup 3+/-doped fiber laser using backscattering from a fiber ring interferometer

Author

Chernikov, S.V. ; Taylor, J.R. ; Gapontsev, D.V. ; Davydov, B.L. ; Samartsev, I.E. ; Gapontsev, V.P.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys., Imperial Coll. of Sci., Technol. & Med., London, UK

fYear

1996

fDate

2-7 June 1996

Firstpage

529

Lastpage

530

Abstract

Summary form only given. High-peak-power pulsed lasers operating around 1.5 /spl mu/m and generating nanosecond pulses at repetition rates from hundreds hertz to tens of kilohertz are of interest for various applications in eye-safe ranging, remote sensing and in fiber reflectometry etc. A number of techniques have been used. Here, we demonstrate a novel self-Q-switched Er-doped fiber laser generating 5-15 nsec pulses with a tunable repetition rate from 100 Hz to 10 kHz in all-optical-fiber configuration without using any active intracavity modulation.

Keywords

Q-switching; backscatter; erbium; fibre lasers; high-speed optical techniques; infrared sources; laser ranging; laser transitions; laser tuning; light scattering; reflectometry; remote sensing by laser beam; ring lasers; ytterbium; 1.5 mum; Er-doped fiber laser; Er/sup 3+//Yb/sup 3+/-doped fiber laser; Q-switching; active intracavity modulation; all-optical-fiber configuration; backscattering; eye-safe ranging; fiber reflectometry; fiber ring interferometer; high-peak-power pulsed lasers; kilohertz; nanosecond pulses; remote sensing; repetition rates; self-Q-switched; tunable repetition rate; Backscatter; Erbium; Fiber lasers; Laser excitation; Optical interferometry; Power lasers; Pump lasers; Ring lasers; Solid lasers; Ultrafast optics;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics, 1996. CLEO '96., Summaries of papers presented at the Conference on

Conference_Location

Anaheim, CA, USA

Print_ISBN

1-55752-443-2

Type

conf

Filename

865016