Composite fiber Bragg grating written by femtosecond laser for Raman suppression in high-power fiber oscillators

Abstract

High-power fiber oscillators have been widely used in industrial processing, high-end manufacturing, biomedicine and so on. However, as the output power increase, stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) becomes the main factor limiting the performance improvement of fiber oscillators. In this paper, a chirped and tilted fiber Bragg grating (CTFBG) is used to suppress SRS in a high-power fiber oscillator. The CTFBG is fabricated on one side of a low-reflectivity FBG (LRFBG) to form a composite FBG by the femtosecond laser phase mask technology, enhancing the compactness and stability of the fiber oscillator system. SRS is effectively suppressed by CTFBG with a Raman suppression depth and width of 16 dB and 86 nm, respectively, and the Raman light ratio in the output power decreases by an order of magnitude. The output power of fiber oscillators is increased to 9 kW, which is the highest power for fiber oscillators with SRS suppression using CTFBGs, to the best of our knowledge. This work demonstrates that the composite FBG can effectively improve the performance of high-power fiber oscillators, which provides new insights into the development of fiber laser technology.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Fiber Bragg grating / Fiber laser / Stimulated Raman scattering / High-power laser / Femtosecond laser

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