Chirped-pulse erbium-doped all-fiber ultrashort pulse laser for a fiber optic Raman distributed temperature sensor

Abstract

In this paper, we have developed a chirped-pulse Er-doped all-fiber ultrashort pulse (USP) laser suitable for highresolution Raman distributed temperature sensor (RDTS) system application. Chirped-pulse regime which is determined by the positive net-cavity dispersion of +0.12 ps2 allows us to increase the energy of the pulses for effective signal-to-noise ratio in receiving system. It also helps to avoid the influence most of nonlinear effects due to relatively long pulses duration of ~24.6 ps. The average power of the pulses is estimated to be ~1 mW from master oscillator, and currently increased up to ~15 mW by power amplifier. A relatively low repetition rate of ~ 7.925 MHz with signal-to-noise ratio ~ 69 dB was achieved using the resonator length of ~25.6 m. To characterize short-term stability of the obtained regime we have also measured the relative intensity noise of the laser, which is < -107 dBc/Hz in the range of 3 Hz - 1 000 kHz.