The single-frequency operation of a thulium fiber laser at a short wavelength of 1720 nm is investigated in a ring resonator. Powerful single-longitudinal-mode operation was realized by utilizing an unpumped thulium-doped fiber as the saturable absorber. The fiber laser delivered 407 mW single-frequency output with a spectral linewidth of 4.4 kHz under 2.7-W launched pump power at 1570 nm, which turned to multi-longitudinal-mode operation at higher pump powers. Additionally, optical bistability of both output power and longitudinal mode behavior, originating from the saturable absorption effect, were observed and discussed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first efficient 1.7-μm single-frequency fiber laser as well as the first demonstration of optical bistability in thulium-doped fiber lasers.

In this paper, an ultra-narrow linewidth hybrid Brillouin/thulium fiber laser (BTFL) was demonstrated. By optimizing the output coupling, pump scheme, fiber length and Brillouin pump power for the linewidth narrowing, 344-mW output power with a narrow linewidth of 0.93 kHz was obtained from the BTFL, in which the linewidth of Stokes light was suppressed more than 43 times compared with the 40 kHz linewidth of the Brillouin pump. Besides, the influences of output coupling and pump scheme on the power and linewidth behavior of a single-frequency BTFL were also experimentally investigated, and there exists a performance balance among linewidth narrowing, output power and SBS threshold. The output coupling exerted a significant influence on the BTFL performance.

Using commercial Tm-doped silica fiber and 1570-nm in-band pump source, we demonstrated an efficient 1720-nm all-fiber laser with ring-cavity configuration. The theoretical model based on rate equations was built up to analyze the laser performance of Tm-doped fiber, which exhibits strong absorption in the 1.7-μm region. The results show that efficient laser operation can be achieved through the optimization of output coupling and the length of Tm-doped fiber. An experimental investigation was performed and agreed with the calculation. By using homemade couplers, we experimentally achieved 2.36-W laser output at 1720 nm under a 6-W launched pump. The slope efficiency with respect to the absorbed pump power and optical efficiency were 50.2% and 39.3%, respectively. Due to the employment of a ring resonator, a narrow laser linewidth of ∼4 GHz at maximum output power was observed.

Here we demonstrated an efficient high-power single-frequency thulium-doped fiber ring laser operating at 1720 nm. Three cascaded sub-rings were inserted into the main cavity to significantly enlarge the effective free spectral range. By incorporating a fiber Bragg grating, the single longitudinal mode operation was achieved. The maximum single-frequency output power reached up to 1.11 W under 3.75-W launched pump power, while the slope efficiency with respect to the absorbed pump power was 46.4%. The laser linewidth at maximum single-frequency power was measured of 1.9 kHz. Potential power scaling of the single-frequency output power with different quantity and lengths of the sub-rings was also theoretically investigated.

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