Versatility of Stimulated Raman Scattering Based Power Combining of Multiple Fiber Lasers

We demonstrate the versatility of our recently demonstrated technique of Stimulated Raman Scattering induced simultaneous wavelength conversion and power combining of multiple Ytterbium (Yb) doped fiber lasers in terms of number of input pump sources and the wavelength spacing between them. We experimentally show that this technique works when the Raman gain coefficient between the input chosen pump sources is 1) negligible, i.e., when pump sources are separated in wavelength by as small as Snm, 2) approximately half of the peak value, and 3) more than half of the peak value. Our experiments also show that the technique works tOr more than two Ytterbium-doped fiber lasers. Experimental results were shown for power combining of 1074nm and 1079nm lasers, 1088nm and 1117nm lasers, and 1074nm, 1088nm and 1117nm lasers with >80% of the power in the 1.5 mu m band in each case. Also, through simulations, we elucidate the reasons for asymmetric Raman gain that is responsible for power combing and show power combining of 6 pump sources, with arbitrary' wavelength spacing showing the versatility of this technique.