Abstract

$Q$-switched lasers are widely used in material processing, laser ranging, medicine, and nonlinear optics—in particular, $Q$-switched lasers in optical fibers are important since they cannot only generate high peak powers but can also concentrate high peak powers in small areas. In this paper, we present new finite-difference time-domain methods that analyze the dynamics of $Q$-switched fiber lasers, which are more flexible and robust than previous methods. We extend the method to analyze fiber ring lasers and compare the results with our experiments.

© 2016 Optical Society of America

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