Power scaling of high-efficiency 1.5 μm cascaded Raman fiber lasers.

High-power fiber lasers operating at the 1.5 μm wavelength region have attractive features, such as eye safety and atmospheric transparency, and cascaded Raman fiber lasers offer a convenient method to obtain high-power sources at these wavelengths. A limitation to power scaling, however, has been the lower conversion efficiency of these lasers. We recently introduced a high-efficiency architecture for high-power cascaded Raman fiber lasers applicable for 1.5 μm fiber lasers. Here we demonstrate further power scaling using this new architecture. Using numerical simulations, we identify the ideal operating conditions for the new architecture. We demonstrate a high-efficiency 1480 nm cascaded Raman fiber laser with an output power of 301 W, comparable to record power levels achieved with rare-earth-doped fiber lasers in the 1.5 μm wavelength region.