Abstract

High power and high brightness broadband superfluorescent sources have applications in a number of areas including sensing, spectroscopy, medical imaging and metrology. One attractive way to generate broadband output is via the process of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) in a rare-earth doped fibre. Fibre-based superfluorescent sources offer high efficiency, a wide range of operating wavelengths by employing different rare earth dopants and, via cladding pumping, the prospect of high output power. For some applications, the requirement for high power is also accompanied by the need for a linearly-polarised single-spatial-mode output beam. This combination of operating characteristics is more difficult to achieve and places extra demands on the fibre design and overall system design.

© 2007 IEEE