Invited Paper

Near and medium infrared optical fiber lasers and emerging

applications
F. Prudenzanoa*, L. Mesciab, L. Allegrettia, M. De Sariob, A. D’Oraziob, A. Di Tommasoa,
T. Palmisanoa, V. Petruzzellib.
a
DIASS Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Ambiente e per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile
b
Dipartimento di Elettrotecnica ed Elettronica
Politecnico di Bari Via E. Orabona 4 - 70125 Bari Italy

ABSTRACT

Laser cavities emitting in the near and medium infrared wavelength range, made of rare earth doped optical fibers and
suitable pairs of integrated mirrors, are used in a large number of applications. Nowadays, the efficient employment of
near and medium infrared laser beams is largely widespread in the field of m*aterial processing, surgery, directed energy,
remote sensing, spectroscopy, imaging, and so on. In a lot of cases, the high conversion efficiency, the excellent beam
quality, the compactness and, the good heat dissipation capability make fiber lasers competitive and attractive with
respect to other light sources, such as ion-doped crystal and bulk glass lasers, optical parametric oscillators,
semiconductor and gas lasers. The paper aims to recall and/or briefly illustrate a few among the numerous strategies
recently followed by research laboratories and industries to obtain laser sources based on rare earth doped optical fibres.
A recall on the host materials and the dopants employed for their construction, and the corresponding applications is
given, too. Moreover, an example of near infrared (NIR) fiber optic laser development, by employing available on
market components is illustrated by underlining the possibility to easily obtain high beam quality.
Keywords: Laser Sources, Rare Earth Doped Glasses, IR Fiber Lasers, Modelling.

1. INTRODUCTION
Optical fiber lasers are largely used in various fields. Material processing, welding, cutting, marking, directed energy,
surgical applications, remote sensing, navigation, spectroscopy, imaging, countermeasure and other military applications
are well known examples. In particular, during the last two decades, the subject of rare earth doped fiber lasers, operating
in the near (NIR) and in the medium (Mid-IR) infrared wavelength range, has attracted a lot of interest. This is confirmed
by the growing production of the concerning scientific and technical papers and by the large number of novel and high
performance products available on the market. Although it is very hard to give an exhaustive report describing the
research focused on NIR and Mid-IR sources, it is possible to identify, among the large number of research lines, two
important topics: i) the fabrication and/or feasibility investigation of laser operating at wavelengths longer than 1.5
micron, more precisely in the range from 2 until 4.5 microns; ii) the power-scaling of both NIR and Mid-IR lasers in
order to obtain light beam more attractive for a number of industrial applications. Moreover, in most of the applications,
Gaussian-like beam shape is another laser characteristic to be accurately considered in the feasibility investigation for
most of the novel prototypes engineering, before their launching on market.

2. MID-IR FIBER LASER

A lot of the research efforts have been recently devoted toward the fabrication of novel sources operating in Mid-IR
spectrum. In fact, nowadays, the market of the lasers does not provide completely efficient sources in most of the Mid-
IR spectrum, but only in particular wavelength slots, subsequently with circumscribed applications. Mid-IR technologies
provide a number of different sources, among which there are: electrically pumped gas lasers (CO, CO2), optically
pumped ion-doped crystal and glass [1-2]; electrically and optically pumped antimonide, III–V interband cascade lasers,

*
prudenzano@poliba.it, Phone (39) 80-5963781;

Optical Components and Materials VII, edited by Shibin Jiang,

Michel J. F. Digonnet, John W. Glesener, J. Christopher Dries, Proc. of SPIE
Vol. 7598, 75981A · © 2010 SPIE · CCC code: 0277-786X/10/$18 · doi: 10.1117/12.844195

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 IV–VI lead-salt, optically pumped optical parametric oscillators and difference frequency generators [3-4], quantum
cascade semiconductor lasers [5-6].
Unfortunately, thermal and thermo-optical effects can cause significant limitations to the power scalability of end-
pumped bulk laser systems. The large heat load, occurring overall in high-power operation, can cause rod temperature
increases, in some case leading to the rod damage and, more frequently, to thermal lensing effects and relevant spherical
aberrations [2-3]. Moreover, flash lamp pumped solid-state lasers typically operate in pulsed mode. These laser sources
often exhibit low conversion efficiency, limited beam quality and they are, frequently, rather complex, bulky and
expensive [2-3] [6]. The technological progress in i) production of innovative fiber laser host materials, e.g. via the
synthesis of novel glasses, and ii) optical fibre fabrication technology, allowing sophisticated optical fibres having
particularly suitable cross sections, e.g. via the microstructured optical fiber (MOF) approach, and iii) shape optimization
of high-power beam diode lasers, to be used as pump sources, constitute important factors making the optical fiber
technology one of the most promising and intriguing strategy in order to develop novel and more efficient Mid-IR
sources [7]. The reduced/compact size, the cheapness, the simple and low-cost maintenance, the high lasing efficiency
are other important characteristics of Mid-IR fiber lasers. In addition, the high conversion efficiency of fiber laser is an
intrinsic fiber laser property, arising from the good electromagnetic field bounding, at both the pump and laser
wavelengths. The heating of the rare earth activated medium is very low, or at least reduced with respect to other
solutions. In fact, a lot of pumping energy is converted into delivered laser beam. The large surface to volume ratio,
typical of the fiber geometry, helps the heat dissipation. The efficient spatial overlap between the laser propagation mode
and rare earth doped region allows a low threshold and high slope efficiency. This permits a low input pump power
consumption. Moreover, the long optical path of suitably coiled fibre lasers enables the exploitation of rare earth even in
wavelength range where absorption is weak. The gradual pump absorption and the smooth distribution of the
amplification within the fiber provide high beam quality of the guided mode [8], with beam quality factors which can be
close to theoretical limit M2=1. Silica-based fiber lasers have allowed the construction of efficient and compact sources
in the near-IR wavelength range but they are not able to provide Mid-IR wavelengths because of their high phonon
energy and because it is not possible to dissolve into them high concentrations of rare earth ions. Various rare earth
doped ZBLAN fiber lasers emitting in the spectral region around 2.7 micron in the CW mode have been developed
providing watt-level laser emission [9-10]. In reference [9], Mid-IR fiber amplifiers by using both 4 m long singly
erbium doped and 9 m long Er-Pr-codoped ZBLAN double clad fibers were fabricated and a nearly 5 W amplified signal
was obtained. Recently, an output power of 24 W has been obtained with a multimode-core Er3+-doped ZBLAN fiber
and with 975 nm diode pumping [11]. Ho3+ doped ZBLAN fibers allow laser beams at 2.9 micron but one of this rare
earth significant shortcomings is the lack of the ground state absorption overlapping with conventional/low cost high-
power pump sources [12]. However, the utilization Ho3+ with Yb3+ or Pr3+ can be exploited in order to obtain the suitable
absorption band and to achieve higher output power without improving the cost, as required by using an intermediate
laser system [13-14]. Dy3+ doped ZBLAN fiber lasers constitute an alternative way to obtain laser emission at 2.9 micron
but the obtainable output power and slope efficiency are low [15]. Lasers emission at the wavelengths 3.22, 3.45 and
3.95 micron has been obtained by doping ZBLAN fiber with holmium and erbium but an increasing of the pump
threshold and a saturation of the output power have been observed [16-18]. These drawbacks added to the use of not
conventional pump sources has prevented the full utilization of these laser transitions. Therefore, the fibre laser
technology based on oxide and fluoride glasses is particularly useful for laser transitions up to 3 μm.
Well known alternative glass hosts are tellurite and chalcogenide glasses. Advances in the development of rare earth
doped optical fibers made of chalcogenide glasses have induced important progress on active devices operating at
wavelength higher than 3 micron [19]. Chalcogenide glasses exhibit a number of advantages. These glasses are
chemically and mechanically durable, exhibit a low toxicity and large glass-forming regions. The high chalcogenide
glass refractive index [2-3] and the low phonon energy (250÷400 cm-1) allow large radiative decay rates, high absorption
and emission cross sections and high quantum efficiency [20]. The electronic energy levels of rare earth ions potentially
allow a number of useful transitions from 2 to 12 μm. However, only a few glass hosts can efficiently activate transitions
at long wavelengths. The low phonon energy of the chalcogenide glasses permits laser transition between close
electronic energy levels. Therefore, many IR transitions, not available in other host materials can be experimented. As
an example, chalcogenide glasses allow the radiative transition from 4I11/2 to 4I13/2 erbium energy levels (quenched by the
multiphonon decay in silica glasses) and from 4I9/2 to 4I11/2 (quenched in fluoride glasses). Furthermore, the high rare
earth solubility in a lot of chalcogenide glasses facilitates the fabrication of novel and efficient rare earth doped lasers
and amplifiers. In fact, the chalcogenide glasses have been doped with a number of rare-earth ions including Ho3+ [21],
Tm3+ [22], Tb3+ [22], Dy3+ [23-25], Pr3+ [25], and Er3+ [26-32]. As a result, novel and promising applications at

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 wavelength longer than 3 μm seem to be feasible even if these glasses often require accurate material processing to
obtain low loss fibers. As an example, the authors have investigated the feasibility of novel fiber lasers and amplifiers
made of Ge20Ga5Sb10S65 chalcogenide glass operating at the signal wavelength λs = 4500 nm with a pump wavelength
λp=806 nm [29-30]. The design was performed on the basis of spectroscopic and optical parameters measured on a
fabricated Er3+ doped chalcogenide bulk sample. An home made numerical code solving the multilevel rate equations
and the power propagation equations via a Runge-Kutta iterative method was utilized. The transversal section of the
designed (and optimized) chalcogenide PCF consisted of three rings of air holes arranged in a triangular lattice having
hole-to-hole distance Λ=8 μm, hole diameter d=3.2 μm and a fiber diameter D=125 μm. The numerical results indicated
that a laser exhibiting a slope efficiency close to the maximum theoretical one and a wide tunability in the wavelength
range where the atmosphere is transparent, can be obtained. The order of magnitude for other parameters considered in
the computation were the following fiber length L=50 cm, Er3+ concentration Ner=11.53×1025 ions/m3, input mirror
reflectivity R1=99%, output mirror reflectivity R2=50%, pump losses αp=0.03 dB/cm and signal losses αs=0.02 dB/cm.
The aforesaid losses are feasible values, which will be plausibly reached via further efforts toward the optimization of
both glass purity and fibre drawing.

3. HIGH POWER FIBER LASER

Up-scaling the level power of fiber lasers is an important and strategic subject because high power, continuous wave and
pulsed fiber lasers, are widely used in material processing such as melting, cutting and welding of plastic and metallic
layers. More in general, high powers are required in directed beam, in light detection and ranging LIDAR and so on. In
order to reach high output power, it is possible to follow different strategies. As an example, a method consists of
increasing the core area while the numerical aperture of the fiber is decreased. In this way the laser light power is
maintained in the fundamental mode [33]. Also the employment of suitable Long Period Grating (LPG) written into the
single-mode core of a double-cladding microstructured optical fiber (DCMOF) is a useful strategy as indicated by
theoretical investigations. In fact, the LPG can allow the power transfer from the inner cladding modes toward the
fundamental mode guided in the core. The optical coupler feasibility was numerically demonstrated in [34-35] and its
refinement was obtained by varying the geometrical parameters of the fiber cross section, the grating period and length.
The simulations highlighted that the core mode power at the output end of a DCMOF with a LPG coupler 23.17 cm long
can be increased of about 575% with respect its value at the input section. This performance was simulated for a chirped-
like LPG made of a cascade of six gratings, having suitable period and length, for which, about 25% of the total input
power can be transferred from the inner cladding modes toward the fundamental mode guided into the core [34-35]. Fig.
1 (a) depicts the evolution of the core fundamental mode power (solid curve) and the total power of the 50 cladding
modes (dotted curve) along the total grating length L of six gratings, arranged in cascade. Fig. 1 (b) illustrates the output
power versus fiber length for a ytterbium doped fiber laser with LPGs (solid curve) and without LPGs (dashed curve).
The simulation were performed for the input pump power Pp=1 W, input mirror reflectivity R1=99%, and output mirror
reflectivity R2=6%; ytterbium concentration N=5×1025 ions/m3.
Multicore fibers (MCFs) constitute an interesting way to further enhance the power level and to increase the effective
doped area. Phase locking and supermode selection can be obtained via different techniques. Wrage et al. [36]
demonstrated phase locking, by employing an optical fiber including 18 separated cores arranged in a ring geometry, by
using the Talbot effect. In [37], an analysis of supermode competition in multicore fiber lasers was illustrated by
employing the rate equation model, suitably extended to rare earth doped multicore fibers. In particular, a butt-contact
mirror, a Talbot cavity, and a collimating lens plus mirror, were taken into account as feedback mechanism, i.e. boundary
conditions, for the simulation by leading to intriguing results. In [38] the laser properties of an Yb3+-doped multicore
photonic crystal fiber lasers were illustrated. In particular, stable supermode phase locking in six- and seven-core
photonic crystal fibers was experimented. Both diffraction losses and the Talbot effect were used to perform effective
supermode selection. Fig. 2 (I) depicts the scanning electron microscope image of the cross section of the six-core
structure [38]. Measurement on the laser beam were performed, by varying the distance z between the six-core fiber end
and the high reflector. The total beam was diffracted in free space over a distance 2z before the backward coupling into
the fiber. Fig. 2 (II) illustrates the experimental far-field CCD images [38] obtained for (a) 2z=0.1 mm, (b) 2z=1 mm,
and (c) 2z=2 mm. Theoretical far-field intensity profiles are reported in (d) (e) and (f). It is worthwhile to note that the
laser exhibited a slope efficiency of 70% and output power higher than 44W. Other interesting results were reported in
[39], where 6-, 7-, and 18-core fibers were tested in CW and Q-switched laser operation. In [40] a new cavity design for

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 (a) (b)
Figure. 1 (a) Evolution of the core fundamental and total cladding mode power along the six gratings; (b) Output power versus
fiber length for a ytterbium doped fiber laser with LPGs (solid curve) and without LPGs (dashed curve) [34-35].

(I) (II)

(I) (II)
Figure 2. (I) Cross section of the six-core structure. (II) Experimental (a), (b), (c) and theoretical (d), (e), (f) far-field images [39-
40].

(a) (b)
Figure 3. (a) Incoherently combined fiber lasers. Laser beams are expanded and directed to the target by individually controlled
steering mirrors [41], (b) A five-channel interferometric combiner for coherent addition [42].

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 controlling the spatial beam quality delivered by a fibre laser including a multicore fibre was proposed. Beams with
quasi-Gaussian profile were produced via the combination of self-imaging effects in a MCF with spatial filtering.
Incoherent laser combining is an alternative technique to obtain high power laser beam. In fact, laser beams can be
incoherently combined to form a directed high-energy laser system having high efficiency, compactness, robustness and
long operating lifetime [41].A number of advantages can be achieved via incoherent combining; as an example the
system is easily scalable to higher power levels. An incoherently combined single mode fiber laser (Fig. 3a) was
fabricated and proposed in [41]. It provided a propagation efficiency of about 90% over a distance of 3.2 km on a 4 cm
radius target in condition of moderate atmospheric turbulence.
As an alternative, a number of laser distributions can be coherently added by means of suitable intra-cavity
interferometric combiners. Experimental demonstrations of coherent addition of 5 and 25 lasers were presented in [42].
The sketch of the five-channel interferometric combiner for coherent addition is reported in Fig. 3 (b) where the
percentage is the reflectivity for each of the five combiner region. The beams 1a, 2a, 3a and 4a are the loss channels, in
which destructive interference occurs [42]. For the five lasers combined output, the beam quality M2 was almost the
same of each individual laser beam and the energy of the combined output beam indicated an 86% combining efficiency,
slight less than that expected, because the reflectivity of all coatings were not accurately controlled [42]. On the contrary,
the combining efficiency was relatively low, when 25 laser distributions were coherently added, because of the relatively
low quality interferometric combiners that were used [42]. Anyway the combining efficiency could be very high, as it
occurs for the five lasers combining, when geometrical and optical imperfections of the interferometric combiners were
minimized. Any configuration, upscaling to a large number of coherently added distributions, is possible but its
efficiency strongly depends on the fabrication tolerances of the interferometric combiners.

4. NIR FIBER OPTIC LASER: DESIGN AND FABRICATION

In both coherent and incoherent laser combining, for a large number of application, it is important to add high quality
laser beams. This goal can be reached in some cases also by employing available on market components. As an example,
the authors have designed and constructed a NIR fiber optic CW laser exhibiting intriguing characteristic in terms of
total efficiency and beam quality [43]. An octagonal shaped Yb3+-doped double cladding fiber by LIEKKI™ , with a
core diameter d=20 μm and numerical aperture NAcore=0.15, has been employed to fabricate the fiber laser. The pump
wavelength is λp= 920 nm and the laser beam is radiated at the signal wavelength λs= 1090 nm. The Yb3+-doped fiber
laser design has been developed with an home made numerical code that solves the rate equations, the signal and the
pump propagation equations. In particular the ground state absorption (GSA) and the stimulated emission (SE) have been
considered in the model [44]. The other phenomena considered in the model are: the noise due to amplified spontaneous
emission (ASE) and the up-conversion, Cup, due the 4I13/2 (level 2) ion pairs, resulting in the population of the 4I15/2 and
4
I9/2 (level 4) levels; the up-conversion, C3, due to the 4I11/2 ion pairs, resulting in the population of the 4I15/2 and 4F7/2
levels; the cross-relaxation, C14, between a 4I9/2 ion and a 4I15/2 one, both resulting in the level 4I13/2. The set of nonlinear
differential equations, modelling the amplifier operation, is constituted by the rate equations, the equations of the
propagation of pump and signal powers and the equation of the spectral density of both the forward and backward
amplified spontaneous emission powers, ASE, along the propagation direction of the fiber as a function of the frequency
ν [44]. The electromagnetic field profiles, calculated via a finite element method FEM code is employed in the
calculation of the transition rates. The equations of power propagation and the rate equation have been numerically
integrated via a Runge-Kutta based iterative method [44]. The thermal effect have been taken into account [45]. For a
pump power Pp=150 W the maximum output power Pout=91 W is simulated for a 25 m-long fiber. A commercial
software LIEKKI™ application designer (LAD) was employed, too. The numerical results were compared and a good
agreement was obtained. The maximum output power calculated Via LIEKKI™ LAD was 89.6 W, for a fibre length
L=24.5 m. The experimental setup of the laser has been performed by using five pump laser diode each providing a
maximum output power of 50 W at 920 nm with total efficiency of 60%, an input mirror with a reflectivity R1=99%, and
an output mirror with a reflectivity R2=6%. A multimode six-to-one fiber channel combiner has been spliced to the laser
cavity to obtain the input pump power section and the signal output one. A power supply and a water cooling system
have been employed to complete the set-up. The laser beam has been recovered via a high-power Laser Beam Profiler of
PhotonIncTM. In particular, the M2 below 1.1 has been measured at 14 W laser beam output, using a 400 mm focal length
lens. The beam profile at 14 W was spatially single mode and exhibited to be M2(x)=1.07 and M2(y)=1.04. Fig. 4a

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 (a) (b)
Figure 4. Octagonal double clad, Ytterbium doped fibre laser. Measured (a) 3-dimensional beam profile; (b) output spectrum.

Figure 5 . Measured laser output power versus the total pump power.

Figure 6 . Output power versus the time.

illustrates the three-dimensional beam profile. The beam profile is similar to a Gaussian one and the beam size was close
to 1.9 mm for both x and y directions. The laser measured central wavelength was around 1089.5 nm, the output
spectrum measured at 105 W is shown in Fig. 4b. The maximum FHWM spectral width was close to 0.42 nm at 105 W
output power. The measured laser output power versus the total input power is depicted in Fig. 5. The optical-optical
efficiency at pump diode current Ip= 4 A is close to η=57.4% and the electrical-optical efficiency is close to 36%.
Moreover, the thermal stability, very important to avoid the effect described in [45], was controlled via an accurate
cooling system. Fig.6 shows the laser output power close 110W versus the time, exhibiting an almost constant behaviour.

5. CONCLUSIONS
A brief review on laser sources has been reported. A few strategies adopted in order to increase the laser performance
have been summarized. An example of design and fabrication of NIR Yb3+-doped fiber laser utilizing on market
component has been reported. More precisely, the fabricated fiber laser is constituted by an octagonal shaped Yb3+-
doped double cladding fiber by LIEKKI™ with a core diameter d=20 μm and numerical aperture of NAcore=0.15. The
electrical-optical efficiency at pump diode current Ip=4 A is close to 36 %.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The work has been developed within the COST ACTION MP0702: Towards Functional Sub-Wavelength Photonic Structures and
has been partially funded by II Facoltà di Ingegneria of Politecnico di Bari - District funds.

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