Fiber laser systems are considered to be a type of diode-pumped solid-state laser system that applies a doped core of standard optical fiber as the amplification medium. The thing is that fiber lasers consist of a fiber optic cable with a core doped with various rare earth elements.
It should be noted that these elements are chosen and then installed into the ultra-pure optical fiber core to obtain a required laser beam wavelength and power. Therefore, the pump diodes emit the laser beam light, which in turn raises the rare earth ions installed in the doped optical fiber core.
Additionally, the fiber laser system has fiber Bragg gratings which are located at each end of the optical fiber leading to the amplification of the laser beam light. It should be noted that “one of the gratings has a lower reflectivity than the other, which enables the laser beam light which has been produced in the cavity (amplifying medium) to exit the optical fiber.”
It turns out the laser beam spreads through the fiber of high power and out of the laser system. To be more precise, a doped optical fiber core operates as the amplification medium in fiber lasers, while diodes are regarded as pumps. Herewith, several semiconductor diodes are installed into the optical fiber to make the fiber operates as the amplifying medium.
Usually, there are multiple pump diodes in the fiber laser, and the laser beam light emitted by the pump diodes goes through a pump combiner to raise the active element in the core of the optical fiber. All fiber laser systems include the following components:
- Doped optical fiber
This type of optical fiber looks like a cylindrical strand made of highly pure silica glass. They allow directing the laser beam by reflecting the light as it goes through the fiber.
- Double-clad fiber
Fiber lasers generally apply double-clad fiber with a core of the rare-earth dopants. A traditional single-mode optical fiber provides the laser beam quality characteristics necessary to laser system manufacturers.
- Ytterbium (Yb) optical fiber
This material is considered to be the most common rare-earth element, herewith, it provides pretty good laser beam light absorption.
- Pump laser diodes
Laser system diodes are compact efficient tools that modify electrical energy to the laser beam light. The brightness and spectral qualities enable to pump the optical fiber.
- Pump combiners
These passive devices additively enlarge the output power of the pump sources employed to raise the doped ions.
- Fiber Bragg gratings
FBG is a type of distributed reflector that is written on a small part of optical fiber. It blocks specific wavelengths or operates as a wavelength-specific reflector.
Optromix is a fast-growing fiber laser manufacturer and a vendor of optical fiber sensors and optical monitoring systems. The company offers fast turnkey solutions and creates sophisticated fiber laser systems for special purposes. Optromix uses only its technologies and develops a broad variety of fiber lasers. If you have any questions or would like to buy a laser system, please contact us at info@optromix.com