Recent advances in fundamentals and applications of random fiber lasers

Abstract

Doc. ID 239686)Random fiber lasers blend together attractive features of traditional random lasers, such as low cost and simplicity of fabrication, with high-performance characteristics of conventional fiber lasers, such as good directionality and high efficiency. Low coherence of random lasers is important for speckle-free imaging applications. The random fiber laser with distributed feedback proposed in 2010 led to a quickly developing class of light sources that utilize inherent optical fiber disorder in the form of the Rayleigh scattering and distributed Raman gain. The random fiber laser is an interesting and practically important example of a photonic device based on exploitation of optical medium disorder. We provide an overview of recent advances in this field, including high-power and high-efficiency generation, spectral and statistical properties of random fiber lasers, nonlinear kinetic theory of such systems, and emerging applications in telecommunications and distributed sensing.

Lévy Statistics and Glassy Behavior of Light in Random Fiber Lasers

“…After this work, the interest in RFLs and applications has fantastically grown, as reviewed in [47,48]. Indeed, by further exploiting the Rayleigh mechanism due to refractive index fluctuations as the multiple light scattering mechanism, a myriad of novel types of RFLs have been demonstrated using stimulated Raman or Brillouin scattering process.…”

“…Indeed, by further exploiting the Rayleigh mechanism due to refractive index fluctuations as the multiple light scattering mechanism, a myriad of novel types of RFLs have been demonstrated using stimulated Raman or Brillouin scattering process. As most of the works between 2007 and 2014 has been reviewed in [47,48], including polymer-based optical fibers or plasmonically-enhanced RFLs, we highlight here the diversity of works reported over the years 2015 and 2016 (see [49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66] and references therein). As examples, we mention that a Q-switched operation has been reported using Brillouin scattering [56], with pulses as short as 42 ns at 100 kHz being demonstrated.…”

Multi-parameter sensor based on random fiber lasers

“…24 Either in-coherent or coherent lasing outputs have been observed in these random lasing systems, with lasing spectra of bell-shaped peaks as broad as terahertz level 25 or even narrow spikes as sharp as sub-kilohertz. 26,27 RFLs based on the Raman gain has been widely used in many fields, including providing the distributed Raman amplification with lower effective noise and good stability in telecommunication applications, 28 systems up to 300km, 30,31 and extending the sensing range in the distributed sensing systems. 32,33 The Brillouin gain based RFL has been utilized in spectral characterization for lasing linewidth measurements 21 as well as random bit generation.…”

Fiber-type random laser based on a cylindrical waveguide with a disordered cladding layer

“…Since the pioneer works in 1990s, RLs have been realized with a wide range of materials, such as semiconductor, polymer, liquid crystal, biological material/tissue, and optical fiber, covering radiation wavelengths from UV to Mid-infrared [2][3][4][5][6][7] . To enhance the emission efficiency, tailor the output spectrum, or control the emission directions of random lasing, gain materials and scatters of RLs were embedded into optical waveguide structures 3,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14] , in which light amplification and scattering are confined and mediated by the waveguide, giving birth to partially regulated and still randomly formed positive feedback loops that support random lasing. Generally speaking, there are two ways of generating amplified multiple scattering to form positive feedback loops in RLs, i.e., 1) doping randomly distributed scatters into the gain material and 2) forming a random structure adjacent to the bulk gain material.…”

“…[8][9][10][11][12][13][14] . For the second type of RLs, the gain material and the scatter are in separate regions and this facilitates controlling of light amplification and scattering process separately.…”