High-efficiency laser wavelength conversion in deuterium-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber by rotational stimulated Raman scattering

Abstract

We report here, to the best of our knowledge, for the first time high-efficiency laser wavelength conversion from 1.5 µm band to 1.7 µm band in deuterium-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fibers by rotational stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). Due to the special transmission properties of this low-loss hollow-core fiber, the ordinary dominant vibrational SRS is suppressed, permitting efficient conversion to the rotational stokes wave in a single-pass configuration pumped by a fiber amplified and modulated tunable 1.55 µm diode laser. Using proper pump pulse energy and gas pressure, the power conversion efficiencies over the whole output laser wavelength range from 1640 nm to 1674 nm are higher than 48%. And the maximum Raman conversion efficiency of 61.2% is achieved with 20 m fiber and 20 bar deuterium pressure pumped at 1540 nm, giving a maximum average power of about 0.8 W (pulse energy of 1.6 µJ). This work points to a new way for engineerable and compact fiber lasers operation at 1.7 µm band, which has significant applications in biological imaging, laser medical treatment, material processing and detecting.