Abstract

Optical fiber communication, optical fiber sensors, and laser technology have rapidly developed, making a lot of scientists and engineers interested in fabricated function devices. The development of technology of laser diode (LD) pumped solid lasers makes it possible to develop LD pumped crystal optical fiber lasers (COFLs). Some of this kind of COFL pumped by LDs have been reported. Until now COFLs with linearly polarized output have not been reported but are urgently needed for many technological fields. So we have worked on this kind of COFL and have successfully developed LD pumped COFLs with linearly polarized output. First, crystal optical fibers of YAP series have been fabricated by a laser-heated pedestal growth method. The maximum length of the fibers is 15 cm. The diameters are from 50 to 500 μm. The fluctuation of the diameters is smaller than 1%/cm, LD pumped Nd: YAP COFLs with linearly polarized output at 1.0795 μm have been fabricated, and their cw output power is larger than 2 mW.

© 1991 Optical Society of America