DOUBLE CLAD, OFFSET CORE Nd FIBER LASER

Abstract

The earlier glass lasers in both rod and fiber form were mostly side pumped.1 With the demonstration of single mode CW fiber lasers doped with Nd in low loss glass2 there followed considerable work with end pumped fiber lasers with many of the rare earths that had lased.3-6 In this paper, the behavior of a single mode Nd fiber laser with a double clad configuration is described in which light focused into the first cladding is absorbed by the neodymium core as the pump light proceeds down the fiber. This allows use of multimode pump sources and relatively simple focusing systems for efficient coupling.