Short cavity-length random fiber laser with record power and ultrahigh efficiency

We report the result of achieving a random fiber laser (RFL) with record 200-W-level power output. The highest output power is realized by a simple 120 m long cavity at a working wavelength of 1173 nm while pumping at 1120 nm. The maximum observed optical-to-optical efficiency reaches similar to 89%, which is believed to be the highest value ever reported for RFLs. In addition, numerical calculations on different order Raman Stokes wave thresholds based on the theoretical model are carried out for comparison with the experimental data. The presented work effectively advances the power scalability, and the numerical model well describes the lasing thresholds in such short cavity RFLs. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America