Design and simulation of 1310 nm and 1480 nm single-mode photonic crystal fiber Raman lasers.

Abstract

We have numerically investigated the Raman lasing characteristics of a highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber (HNPCF). HNPCF Raman lasers are designed to deliver outputs at 1.3 microm and 1.48 microm wavelengths through three and six cascades of Raman Stokes cavities when the pumps of 1117 nm and 1064 nm are injected into HNPCF module, respectively. A quantum efficiency of approximately 47% was achieved in a short length of HNPCF for 1.3 microm lasing wavelength. The HNPCF design is modified further to operate in single-mode fashion keeping intact its Raman lasing characteristics. The modified HNPCF design consists of two air-hole rings where the higher-order modes in the central core are suppressed by enhancing their leakage losses drastically, thus ceasing their propagation in the short length of HNPCF. On the other hand, the fundamental mode is well confined to the central core region, unaffecting its lasing performances. Further, the lasing characteristics of HNPCF at 1480 nm are compared with conventional highly nonlinear fiber Raman laser operating at 1480 nm. It is found that one can reduce the fiber length by five times in case of HNPCF with nearly similar conversion efficiency.