OPTIMIZATION OF POWER EXTRACTION IN A HIGH-POWER SOLITON FIBER RING LASER CONTAINING A CHIRPED FIBER GRATING

Power extraction from a high-power soliton fiber ring laser containing a chirped fiber grating is investigated with a variable output couple r. Comparisons are made between the intracavity pulse and the rejectio n port output pulse. It is shown that a good design for extracting hig h quality pulses at high power is to insert an intracavity filter to s uppress spectral sideband generation and to take the output from the r ejection port. The results should apply in general to soliton fiber la sers. Gain saturation is shown to be the main mechanism in the laser t hat compensates for changes in cavity loss. (C) 1996 American Institut e of Physics.