High-power synchronously pumped femtosecond Raman fiber laser

We report a high-power synchronously pumped femtosecond Raman fiber laser operating in the normal dispersion regime. The Raman laser is pumped by a picosecond Yb(3+)-doped fiber laser. It produces highly chirped pulses with energy up to 18 nJ, average power of 0.76 W and 88% efficiency. The pulse duration is measured to be 147 fs after external compression. We observed two different regimes of operation of the laser: coherent and noise-like regime. Both regimes were experimentally characterized. Numerical simulations are in a good agreement with experimental results.