Mid-infrared raman fiber lasers

Abstract

Stimulated Raman scattering has long been used to bridge the gap between the rare-earth emission bands. Since the Raman gain spectrum is fixed solely by the fiber material and the pump wavelength, these sources can also be designed to operate in the MIR spectral region to meet the current application needs in medicine, the defence & security, and spectroscopy. Although they bring new technical challenges, low phonon energy glasses such as fluorides and chalcogenides are typically used for this purpose because of their extended transparency at wavelengths above fused silica fiber transparency window. This chapter will review the state of the art of MIR Raman lasers, as well as their current limitations, and will discuss possible future directions.