Brief Review of Recent Developments in Fiber Lasers

Abstract

This review covers the recent achievements in high-power rare earth (RE)-doped fiber lasers, Raman fiber lasers, and Brillouin fiber lasers. RE-doped fiber lasers have many applications such as laser cutting, laser welding, laser cleaning, and laser precision processing. They operate in several wavelength ranges including 1050–1120 nm (ytterbium-doped fiber lasers), 1530–1590 nm (erbium- and erbium–ytterbium-doped fiber lasers), and 1900–2100 nm (thulium- and holmium-doped fiber lasers). White spaces in the wavelength spectrum, where no RE-doped fiber lasers are available, can be covered by Raman lasers. The heat power generated inside the laser active medium due to the quantum defect degrades the performance of the laser causing, for example, transverse-mode instability and thermal lensing. It can even cause catastrophic fiber damage. Different approaches permitting the mitigation of the heat generation process are considered in this review. Brillouin fiber lasers, especially multiwavelength Brillouin fiber lasers, have several important applications including optical communication, microwave generation, and temperature sensing. Recent progress in Brillouin fiber lasers is considered in this review.