Fiber Raman lasers

Abstract

Optical fibers can exhibit wavelength conversion and other nonlinear optical effects at powers less than one watt. The reason has little to do with the glass in the fiber core, which is one of the least nonlinear of all materials, but rather with the tremendous interaction length possible in low-loss fibers. The combination of low power and well-controlled geometry makes fibers a particularly useful medium for the study of nonlinear optics. There will also be device implications any time nonlinear effects can be produced at low powers. Of course, the presence of such effects has implications for fiber communications since fiber transmission lines may not always be completely passive devices.