We demonstrate a high-power, high-efficiency Raman fiber laser pumped directly by laser diode modules at 978 nm. 154 W of CW power were obtained at a wavelength of 1023 nm with an optical to optical efficiency of 65%. A commercial graded-index (GRIN) core fiber acts as the Raman fiber in a power oscillator configuration, which includes spectral selection to prevent generation of the second Stokes. In addition, brightness enhancement of the pump beam by a factor of 8.4 is attained due to the Raman gain distribution profile in the GRIN fiber. To the best of our knowledge this is the highest power and highest efficiency Raman fiber laser demonstrated in any configuration allowing brightness enhancement (i.e., in either cladding-pumped configuration or with GRIN fibers, excluding step-index core pumped), regardless of pumping scheme (i.e., either diode pumped or fiber laser pumped).

We report the results of our power scaling experiments with resonantly cladding-pumped Er-doped eye-safe large mode area (LMA) fiber laser. While using commercial off-the-shelf LMA fiber we achieved over 88 W of continuous-wave (CW) single transverse mode power at ~1590 nm while pumping at 1532.5 nm. Maximum observed optical-to-optical efficiency was 69%. This result presents, to the best of our knowledge, the highest power reported from resonantly-pumped Yb-free Er-doped LMA fiber laser, as well as the highest efficiency ever reported for any cladding-pumped Er-doped laser, either Yb-co-doped or Yb-free.

We demonstrate a high power high efficiency Raman fiber laser pumped directly by a laser diode module at 976 nm. 80 Watts of CW power were obtained at a wavelength of 1020 nm with an optical-to-optical efficiency of 53%. When working quasi-CW, at a duty cycle of 30%, 85 W of peak power was produced with an efficiency of 60%. A commercial graded-index (GRIN) core fiber acts as the Raman fiber in a power oscillator configuration, which includes spectral selection to prevent generation of the 2nd Stokes. In addition, significant brightness enhancement of the pump beam is attained due to the Raman gain distribution profile in the GRIN fiber. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest power Raman fiber laser directly pumped by laser diodes, which also exhibits a record efficiency for such a laser. In addition, it is the highest power Raman fiber laser (regardless of pumping source) demonstrated based on a GRIN fiber.

Laser operation of an eyesafe 1593.5-nm laser based on Er 3+ -doped yttrium orthovanadate single crystal resonantlypumped by a spectrally-narrowed InGaAsP/InP diode bar stack is demonstrated for the first time. Cryogenicallycooled Er 3+ :YVO4 laser pumped at 1534 nm performed with maximum slope efficiency of ∼ 70% and maximum quasicontinuous-wave (Q-CW) power of 59.8 W. Laser output versus absorbed pump power (Q-CW) for the resonantly diode-pumped cryogenically cooled Er 3+ (0.5%):YVO4 laser

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