Abstract

Tunable lasers allow the emission wavelength λ_L to be adjusted within the gain bandwidth of the amplifying medium. This is of particular interest in applications with strong spectral sensitivity regarding the used light source. Besides fields in telecommunications, tunable lasers are mostly employed in biophotonics for e.g. transmission and absorption measurements as well as in novel analysis methods such as RAMAN, CARS and SERS spectroscopy [1]. Based on broad spectral gain regions offering large tuning bandwidths, rare-earth doped fibers provide a promising basis to develop complying systems. Besides the excellent beam quality and high efficiency, applications in spectroscopy would sustainably benefit from lasers in an all-fiber structure allowing robust, compact and easy-to-use systems to be realized.

© 2015 IEEE