Raman Fiber Lasers and Amplifiers Based on Multimode Graded-Index Fibers and Their Application to Beam Cleanup

Raman fiber lasers (RFLs) and Raman fiber amplifiers (RFAs) in multimode fibers were explored. The RFL based on a graded-index fiber was shown to be very efficient relative to RFLs based on singlemode fibers. Several configurations of the RFL were examined; the beam quality of the Stokes beam depended on the reflectivity of the output coupler and the Stokes power. When used as a beam combiner, the RFL was a highly efficient brightness converter. RFL configurations which used dichroic mirrors were shown to be potentially useful for RFLs based on very large fibers. The forward- and backward-seeded geometries of an RFA based on a graded-index fiber were examined. The beam quality of the output was observed to depend on the beam quality of the input. A numerical model explains this behavior in terms of mode competition and explains why beam cleanup occurs in graded-index fibers but not in step-index fibers. The spectrum of the forward-seeded geometry was superior to the spectrum of the backward-seeded geometry. The RFA was used as a beam combiner. The original document contains color images.