Abstract

High average power, wavelength tunable, optical sources have many applications in biophysics, sensing, and telecommunications. In this work we demonstrate a fiber optical parametric oscillator with multi-Watt level output power over a 450 nm tuning range around 1550 nm. The tunability of the oscillator is a result of the wide frequency tunability of phasematched four-wave-mixing possible when pumping close to the zero dispersion wavelength (ZDW) of an optical fiber [1]. The low-frequency (Stokes) parametric sideband has an average output power in excess of 4 W between 1580 and 1680 nm, and in excess of 2 W out to 1780 nm. The high-frequency (anti-Stokes) sideband likewise has an average output power in excess of 2 W out to 1365 nm. This performance represents a considerable advance over previously reported high average power fiber oscillators [2]. High average power (2-3 W) parametric sidebands have also been reported using parametric amplification in large-mode-area photonic crystal fibers [3,4], however in these experiments the wavelength of the pump source used was fixed and no tunablity of the output parametric sidebands was possible.

© 2011 Optical Society of America