Single-frequency laser oscillator with watts-level output power at 1.5 microm by use of a twisted-mode technique

We report an all-fiber laser oscillator producing as much as 1.9 W of single-frequency direct output at 1.5 microm. Spatial gain hole burning in the active fiber has been eliminated by use of a twisted-mode cavity approach. The two short pieces of a polarization-maintaining fiber that were spliced to the ends of the active fiber served as ultracompact quarter-wave plates. To our knowledge, the use of such a wave plate to manipulate the polarization state of light inside a fiber laser cavity is reported here for the first time. The laser output is linearly polarized and delivered through a polarization-maintaining fiber pigtail. We believe that the output power of our laser is the highest among all single-frequency fiber laser oscillators reported to date.