Abstract

Er-doped fiber lasers have many potential uses, mainly for short pulse generation¹ and as narrow linewidth sources.² This paper presents the first, to our knowledge, waveguide optimization of an Er-doped fiber laser. The optimization is carried out by the use of an accurate model described in Ref. 3, extended to include bath micro- and macrobending losses,⁴ as these must be taken into account for the spotsizes considered here. As figures of merit for the laser the pump threshold (P_th) and the quantum slope efficiency (QSE) are used. P_th is the minimum absorbed pump power required for lasing, while QSE is the slope of the ratio of the number of generated signal photons to the number of launched pump photons above threshold.

© 1992 Optical Society of America