Amplifier and laser of thulium-doped silica optical fiber

Abstract

We present in this work a thulium-doped fiber laser with ring cavity in continuous wave operation. The pumping is based on Erbium-doped fiber lasers at 1600 nm. The operation with continuous wave pumping and pulsed pumping has been studied, obtaining efficiencies of 35% and 38 % respectively. These efficiencies are higher than the known efficiencies pumping at 1600 nm. The emission spectrum has two peaks located between 1910 nm and 1920 nm. As the same time, we present measurements of the spectral gain of the thulium-doped fiber. As an example, we have implemented a thulium-doped fiber amplifier, demonstrating to be able to amplify a supercontinuum spectrum in the interval between 1800 nm and 2000 nm, which could be used to pump highly nonlinear fibers with a zero-dispersion wavelength in this region.