Abstract

The use of coherent optical sources as pumps in solid-state lasers has led to the experimental feasibility of long fibrelasers, thus allowing for the study of coherent effects on increased time-scales. The fabrication process and the wired geometry of the host matrix induce a small birefringence which defines two polarization eigenstates along the eigenaxes of the host glass. The pump diode-lasers are usually linearly polarized. Such a linearly polarized pumping in bi-axial lasers introduces polarization-related effects which are masked out when conventional unpolarized optical pumping, such as flashlamps, are used.

© 1994 IEEE