Novel Single Clad Ho-doped Fiber with High Slope Efficiency and Low Ion Pairing

We report the design and experimental and simulated performance for a 2050 nm band fiber amplifier with high optical-optical slope efficiency and low ion pairing, using a novel high performance single clad Ho-doped fiber from the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). We measure an optical-optical slope efficiency of 57% using 1 mW input signal power and 1860 nm pumping which we believe is the highest slope efficiency obtained to date for a single clad single stage copumped HDFA. A new method for non-destructive measurement of the ion pairing coefficient in Ho-doped fibers is introduced and validated. Using this method, we link our 57% slope efficiency to a low ion pairing coefficient of 4% in the NRL Ho-doped fiber as derived from our experimental data. We present an overview and survey of the ion pairing results for Ho-doped fiber amplifiers and lasers reported so far in the literature.

2 $μ$m Watt-level Fiber Amplifiers, Lasers, and ASE Sources Pumped by Broadband ASE Pumps

We report the design and demonstration of novel 2 $\mu$m band Watt-level fiber amplifiers, fiber lasers, and wideband ASE sources that are pumped with broad spectrum Watt-level ASE sources instead of conventional fiber laser pumps. We show good agreement between the simulations and experimental results for the performance of a single-stage Ho-doped fiber amplifier at 2050nm wavelength pumped by a 50 nm broadband Tm-doped ASE source centered at 1860 nm. Next, we show that the new ASE pumping approach works effectively for a two -stage Ho-doped fiber amplifier as for a single stage Ho-doped fiber amplifier. Then, we demonstrate successfully the pumping of a Tm-doped fiber laser at 2039 nm using an ASE source centered at 1550 nm. Finally, we produce a novel 265 nm wide broadband ASE source at 2 $\mu$m by concatenating Tm and Ho ASE sources. Our ASE-based pumping approach is simple and versatile compared to the standard laser based pumping means, and leads to similar device performance.