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I. INTRODUCTION
ISIBLE lasers, especially those emitting RGB colors are
indispensable for applications like laser display, optical
storage and biomedicine, etc. Among many candidates, the visible fiber laser based on trivalent Pr3+ -ions in fiber host has
received much attention because it can offer several transitions
in red, orange, green, and blue spectral regions, tunability, and it
owns advantages of typical fiber lasers like excellent beam quality, efficient energy conversion, small footprint, flexible configuration and extraordinary heat dissipating capability.
In Pr3+ -doped fiber (PDF) lasers, the visible laser can be
obtained by either infrared pump source or blue-violet pump
Manuscript received May 16, 2013; revised October 21, 2013; accepted October 29, 2013. Date of publication November 6, 2013; date of current version
November 25, 2013. This work was supported in part by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China under Grant 61107087 and Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities (HUST: 2011TS061).
J. Shi, M. Tang, S. Fu, and D. Liu are with the Next generation Internet
Access National Engineering lab, School of Optical and Electronic
Information, and Wuhan National laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong
University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China (e-mail:
shijun93@163.com; tangming@mail.hust.edu.cn; songnian@mail.hust.edu.cn;
dmliu@mail.hust.edu.cn).
P. Shum is with the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637553
(e-mail: shenpingperry@gmail.com).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JLT.2013.2289858
28
Fig. 2.
Fig. 1.
conversion fiber lasers to optimize the output performance, especially for both steady state and Q-switching pulsed operation.
In this paper, we proposed a numerical model and simulate
the performance of Pr3+ -doped down conversion visible fiber
laser for steady state and Q-switching mechanisms. The all-fiber
laser cavity is constructed with Pr3+ -doped fluoride fiber and
FBGs. The proposed visible laser system has the advantages
such as compact and robust structure, low loss and switchable
operation state between continuous-wave and pulsed output. For
the steady state operation, the output power of green (522.2 nm)
oscillation is smaller and the threshold is much larger than the
red (638 nm) one, which qualitatively agrees well with previous
experimental demonstrations [5], [6]. The calculated optimum
cavity reflectivity for both red and green oscillation is very
close to the reflectivity adopted by [5] and [6]. The FBG based
cavity exhibits advantages over conventional PDF laser system
in terms of low threshold and high slope efficiency, especially
for green output, which shares the same upper energy level with
the red oscillation but has much slower depletion rate than the
red one at lower laser level. The narrow reflection band of FBG
helps to establish the green laser oscillation through effectively
suppressing the red emission. For the Q-switched operation,
although the peak power of red Q-switched pulse is much higher
than the green one, it shows obvious multipeaks and spurious
pulses. Considerable amount of energy will leak out from HR
FBG cavity end for red Q-switching, especially under low pulse
repetition rate as demonstrated by our simulation and reported
experimental results [13]. Physical insights behind the abovementioned phenomena are analyzed, and methods to improve
the output performance are discussed. With the optimized cavity
parameter proposed in this paper, the spurious pulses can be
effectively removed; the energy leakage from HR FBG cavity
end can be at least suppressed to as low as 0.39% of total output
energy; and the peak power of the red output pulse can be as
high as 1500 watt under only 1 watt GaN LD pumping.
II. MODELING
A. Down-Conversion in Praseodymium Ion Energy Diagram
Fig. 1 shows the energy level diagram, pumping scheme, and
transitions for praseodymium ion in fluoride glass. Visible lasing occurs on transitions originating from the 3 P0 ,3 P1 , and 1 I6
levels of praseodymium ions. These three levels are thermally
(2)
SHI et al.: MODELING AND ANALYSIS OF FIBER BRAGG GRATING BASED VISIBLE PR3 + -DOPED FIBER LASERS
N1
= N2 (z, t)Wse R +N2 (z, t)A21 N1 (z, t)/1
t
N2
= N3 (z, t)/3 N2 (z, t)Wse R N2 (z, t)/2
t
N3
= N0 (z, t)Wpa R N3 (z, t)Wpe R N3 (z, t)/3 .
t
The rate equations for green PDF laser are:
(3)
29
TABLE I
PARAMETERS USED IN THE SIMULATIONS
(4)
(5)
(6)
N1
= N2 (z, t)Wse G +N2 (z, t)A21 N1 (z, t)Wsa G
t
N1 (z, t)/1
(7)
N2
= N3 (z, t)/3 + N1 (z, t)Wsa
t
N2 (z, t)/2
N3
= N0 (z, t)Wpa
t
where
N2 (z, t)Wse
(8)
N3 (z, t)Wpe
Wsa,se =
(10)
Wpa,pe =
(11)
1 Pp R
= p
p R t
R (N3 pe R
N0 pa
Pp R (z, t) p
R)
R Pp R (z, t)
(12)
Ps R
z
Ps R
1
s
= s
R N2 se
+
R Ps R (z, t)
s R Ps R (z, t)
+ s
R N2 se R
2hc
/3s R .
1 Pp G
= p
p G t
G (N3 pe G
N0 pa
Pp G (z, t) p
G)
G Pp G (z, t)
(14)
Ps G
z
1
s G
Ps G
t
= s
G [N2 se G
(16)
(17)
(18)
(19)
Ps+ (0, t)
(13)
N1 sa
G]
where Wl is the pump power that coupled into the left end of
PDF. L is the fiber length. Rp1 and Rp2 are the cavity reflectivity
for pump at both ends of the laser cavity, and the time dependent
Rs1 (t) and Rs2 (t) represent the effective cavity reflectivity of
signal at both ends of PDF. Under the lasing condition, the
output power and pulse energy are given by
Pout (t) = (1 Rs2 )Ps+ (L, t)
t2
Eout =
Pout (t)dt.
(20)
(21)
t1
Ps+ G (z, t) s
+ s
G N2 se
G Ps G (z, t)
2hc2 /3s
G.
(15)
In the above equations, the suffix R and G represent red
and green transitions, respectively. N is the total Pr3+ ions
30
algorithm. For steady state, two UFBGs with different peak reflectivity form a linear cavity and for Q-switching operation,
FBG2 is modulated at certain repetition frequency by the PZT
adhesive to it. The Bragg wavelength of FBG2 is detuned with
respect to FBG1 periodically. A lower laser cavity Q factor is
produced when the reflection peak of FBG2 is offset by a certain
wavelength with FBG1, while Q-switched pulse will be generated when the wavelength of reflectivity peaks of two FBGs
are close enough. The rise time and fall time of the PZT are
fixed at 5 s and the duty cycle of the Q-switching is set to
be 50%. Time-variant effective cavity reflectivity Rs1 (t) and
Rs2 (t) in the boundary conditions can be calculated using the
method mentioned in [14]. The propagation equations can be
numerically solved using finite difference method hence to get
the output power and pulses energy.
dramatically compared with the red oscillation, and the reflectivity of FBG2 for green oscillation needs to be much larger
than the red one to establish laser oscillation. The output power
only has negligible increment when the doping concentration >
5000 ppm for both red and green oscillation.
The numerical results qualitatively agree well with previous
experimental demonstrations [5], [6]. The optimum reflectivity
of FBG2 for red and green wavelength in our simulation is 89%
and 95%, respectively, which agree very well with the cavity
reflectivity used by [5] and [6], in which 81.5% and 94.9% of
reflectivity are selected for red and green laser operation, respectively. In [5], the threshold power and slope efficiency of
PDF laser emitting 638 nm are approximately 138.2 mW and
53% considering the coupling efficiency from GaN LD to fiber
and the reflection/diffraction loss due to components. While
our simulation results are 125 mW and 62.35% correspondingly. The deviation of simulation and experimental result may
be caused by the following reasons. First, the peak wavelength
and the emitting area of LD are increase with the increase of
the output power of the GaN LD [17]. Second, we assume the
power filling factor of the pumping and signal to be 1 in the
simulation, but most of experimental works have multimode
profile. The threshold power and slope efficiency relative to the
power coupled into PDF are 189 mW and 44% in our green PDF
laser simulation, while the experimental results [6] are 328 mW
and 38%. The FBG based laser cavity could be the main reason for the difference of green PDF laser simulation and experimental results, especially on the threshold power. Because
visible lasing all occurs on transitions originating from the thermally coupled energy levels (3 P0 ,3 P1 ), and the FBG cavity in
the simulation offers a narrow reflection band compared with the
dielectric multilayered coatings used in the experiment. With the
spectral filtering effect, the in-band green laser oscillation could
be established much easier when other out-of-band wavelength
laser oscillation can be suppressed by the weak reflectivity of
the FBG. FBG-based cavity thus exhibits advantages over conventional PDF system in terms of low threshold and high slope
efficiency.
SHI et al.: MODELING AND ANALYSIS OF FIBER BRAGG GRATING BASED VISIBLE PR3 + -DOPED FIBER LASERS
31
Fig. 6. The influence of the PRF on the output peak power and energy leakage
percentage for (a) red and (b) green Q-switching.
Fig. 4. Stabilized Q-switched pulse under PRF of 5 kHz: (a) Red, HR,
(b) Red, LR, (c) Green, HR, and (d) Green, LR (T r = 2 ns).
Fig. 5.
power of red oscillation is much higher than the green one because the red oscillation has much larger emission cross-section
and empty population densities at lower energy band of the
red transition. It also can be seen from Fig. 4 that considerable
amount of energy leaks out from HR FBG cavity end for red
Q-switching; while for green Q-switching, almost all the energy
is output from LR FBG cavity end. There are multipeaks and
spurious pulses on the red Q-switched pulse while the green
Q-switched pulse shape is clean without spurious part. Red Qswitched pulse starts to build up approximately 4.2 s after the Q
switch is on, while about 4.82 s is needed for green Q-switched
pulse, The larger gain factor of red oscillation is responsible for
the earlier formation of the red Q-switched pulse generation.
The differences between red and green Q-switched pulses
characteristics presented in Fig. 4 can be attributed to the fact that
red oscillation has a much larger gain factor, which is mainly
caused by its much larger emission cross-section and empty
population densities at lower energy band of the red transition.
This can be verified by Figs. 57. Fig. 5 presents red stabilized
Q-switched pulse with pulse repetition rate from 5 kHz to
45 kHz. When the pulse repetition frequency (PRF) increases,
the population inversion buildup time and the gain factor decreases. It can be seen from Fig. 5 that the spurious pulse
Fig. 7. Red Q-switched pulse under pulse repetition rate of 5 kHz: The left
column: output from HR cavity end; The right column: output from LR cavity
end (a1, a2) W 1 = 0.5 W, (b1, b2) W 1 = 1 W, (c1, c2) W 1 = 3 W, (d1, d2)
W 1 = 5 W.
32
Fig. 8.
Fig. 9. Red Q-switched pulse with different peak reflectivity of FBG2 (output
from FBG2 cavity end; PRF = 5 kHz).
SHI et al.: MODELING AND ANALYSIS OF FIBER BRAGG GRATING BASED VISIBLE PR3 + -DOPED FIBER LASERS
Fig. 10. The influence of the reflectivity of FBG2 on the output peak power
and energy leakage percentage for (a) red and (b) green Q-switching.
Fig. 11. Red Q-switched pulse with different doping concentration (output
from FBG2 cavity end; PRF = 5 kHz).
33
Fig. 12. Influence of the doping concentration on the output peak power and
energy leakage percentage for (a) red and (b) green Q-switching.
energy leakage from the HR cavity end, both for red and green
transitions.
From Fig. 11, it can be seen that the peak power of red
Q-switched pulse is increasing when doping concentration increases from 300 to 400 ppm, which is induced by the pump
absorption and population inversion increment. With the further
increment of doping concentration and the population inversion,
the spurious pulse can be observed when doping concentration
increases to 1500 ppm. The second pulse in one Q-switch period is gradually suppressed as the doping concentration further
increases from 1500 to 10500 ppm. This is mainly caused by
two reasons: 1) the first Q-switched pulse buildup is postponed
with higher doping concentration, which is caused by larger loss
related to doping concentration and 2) the aggravation of the inhomogeneous distribution of the population inversion along the
fiber axis with higher doping concentration (the population inversion is decreasing along the fiber axis) means that the first
pulse will deplete more population inversion; hence the second
pulse will be suppressed with higher doping concentration. Because the second pulse is assumed to be the main pulse for its
higher peak power, the suppress of the second pulse will lower
the peak power output from the LR cavity end when doping
concentration is between 15003000 ppm. The same explanation applies to the negative relationship between the doping
concentration and the peak power output from LR cavity end
as shown in Fig. 12(a). The peak power output from LR cavity
end slowly increases when the doping concentration is larger
than 10500 ppm. After the saturation point around 15000 ppm,
the peak power starts to decrease since the cavity loss becomes
dominant in this short laser cavity at very high doping concentration. It can be seen from Fig. 12(b) that, the peak power of
green Q-switched pulse increases from 500 to 1500 ppm, then
starts to decrease after its peak value at 1500 ppm. Since green
transition shows much less spurious pulses and energy leakage
from HR FBG cavity end, the influence of the doping concentration on the output peak power is straightforward and can be
explained simply by the interplay between population inversion
and attenuation.
In conclusion, an efficient numerical model of FBG-based
praseodymium-doped fiber laser has been proposed and developed to investigate the PDF laser performance in the visible
wavelength range. The numerical results of steady state laser
operation qualitatively agree well with previously reported experimental demonstrations. For the steady state operation, since
34
the gain factor of red oscillation is larger than the green one, the
output power of green oscillation is smaller and the threshold is
larger than the red wavelength. There exist optimal fiber length
and cavity reflectivity for both red and green oscillation, but the
optimum fiber length for red oscillation is longer than the green
one while the optimum cavity reflectivity is smaller. When the
fiber length is longer than the optimum value, the output power
of green pulse decreases dramatically compared with the red
oscillation, and the reflectivity of FBG2 for green oscillation
need to be much larger than the red one to establish laser oscillation. The output power only has negligible increment when the
doping concentration >5000 ppm for both red and green oscillations. For the Q-switched operation, although the peak power
of red Q-switched pulse are generally much higher than the
green one, the red Q-switched pulse shows obvious multipeak
and spurious components. Considerable amount of energy will
leak out from HR FBG cavity end for red color Q-switching,
especially under the low pulse repetition rate. The differences
in the pulse shape and dynamics between red and green oscillation are caused by the gain factor difference and FBG-based
Q-switching property. Lower the peak reflectivity of FBG2 and
choosing the right doping concentration of PDF can effectively
suppress the spurious pulses and energy leakage from FBG1.
The peak power can be further optimized by choosing suitable
peak reflectivity of FBG2 and the doping concentration of the
PDF. With the comprehensive simulation and analysis given in
this paper, our proposed numerical model will be very useful
in the realization and optimization of PDF based visible downconversion fiber lasers for various applications. Since there is
still no demonstration of ZBLAN-based FBGs in visible wavelength range, the development of ZBLAN-based components
is necessary to experimentally demonstrate the simulated laser
performances in this paper.
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Jun Shi was born in Anhui Province, China, in 1989. She received the Bachelors
degree from the Changchun University of Science and Technology, Changchun,
China, in 2010. She is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree under Prof.
Ming Tang within National Engineering Laboratory for Next Generation Internet
Access System, Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Wuhan
National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Wuhan, China. Her research focuses
on the experimental and numerical simulation of direct emitting visible lasers
for many applications.
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Ming Tang (SM11) received the B.Eng. degree from the Huazhong University
of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, China, in 2001, and the Ph.D.
degree from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in 2005.
His postdoctoral research in Network Technology Research Centre was
focused on the optical fiber amplifiers, high-power fiber lasers, nonlinear fiber
optics, and all-optical signal processing. From February 2009, he was with
Tera-photonics group led by Prof. Hiromasa Ito in RIKEN, Sendai, Japan, as a
Research Scientist conducting research on terahertz-wave generation, detection,
and application using nonlinear optical technologies. Since March 2011, he
has been a Professor in the School of Optical and Electronic Information,
Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, HUST, Wuhan, China. He has
published more than 80 technical papers in the international recognized journals
and conferences. His current research interests include optical fiber-based linear
and nonlinear effects for communication and sensing applications.
Dr. Tang has been a member of IEEE Photonics Society since 2001. He is
also a member of Optical Society of America.