Abstract

We demonstrate stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) suppression in a Yb-doped fiber amplifier by seeding with a combination of broad- and single-frequency laser beams that are separated sufficiently to suppress four-wave mixing and to allow for efficient laser gain competition between the two signals. In the experiment, a monolithic fiber configuration was used. With appropriate selection of seed power ratio, we were able to generate single-frequency $1064\mathrm{nm}$ light with a slope efficiency of 78% while simultaneously suppressing the backscattered Stokes light. We discuss scalability to high power wherein a large thermal gradient can be induced at the output end of the fiber via quantum defect heating, leading to an SBS suppression factor comparable to counterpumping.

© 2010 Optical Society of America

Pump-limited, 203 W, single-frequency monolithic fiber amplifier based on laser gain competition

Clint Zeringue, Christopher Vergien, and Iyad Dajani
Opt. Lett. 36(5) 618-620 (2011)

Suppression of stimulated Brillouin scattering in high-power single-frequency fiber amplifiers

V. I. Kovalev and R. G. Harrison
Opt. Lett. 31(2) 161-163 (2006)

Enhancement of output power from narrow linewidth amplifiers via two-tone effect - high power experimental results

Leanne J. Henry, Thomas M. Shay, Dane W. Hult, and Ken B. Rowland
Opt. Express 18(23) 23939-23947 (2010)

Stimulated-Brillouin-scattering-suppressed high-power single-frequency polarization-maintaining Raman fiber amplifier with longitudinally varied strain for laser guide star

Lei Zhang, Jinmeng Hu, Jianhua Wang, and Yan Feng
Opt. Lett. 37(22) 4796-4798 (2012)

Beam combinable, kilowatt, all-fiber amplifier based on phase-modulated laser gain competition

Nader A. Naderi, Angel Flores, Brian M. Anderson, and Iyad Dajani
Opt. Lett. 41(17) 3964-3967 (2016)