Design of a Broadband Erbium-Doped Fluoroindate Fiber Laser Emitting Up to 3.91 μm

In this paper, for the first time, an erbium-doped fluoroindate fiber laser emitting up to 3.91 μm is designed and optimized by means of a numerical investigation performed via a home-made computer code. It is cladding pumped with red light at 635 nm. The employed fiber is commercially available from Le Verre Fluoré and exhibits a double D-shaped geometry. Continuous-wave laser emission is obtained thanks to the population inversion between the
⁴
F
_9/2
and
⁴
I
_9/2
energy levels. The model takes into account measured spectroscopic parameters for the absorption, stimulated emission and spontaneous decay processes. The device performance is investigated by varying several parameters, such as the input pump power, the fiber length, the dopant concentration, the output mirror reflectivity and the signal wavelength. The proposed device is very versatile and is optimized for different scenarios, including: the shortest fiber, the highest output power and the lowest threshold. Simulation results show that the best performance in terms of emission bandwidth is obtained for the laser with the lowest threshold, i.e., only 25 mW, predicting a broadband coherent emission in the 3.25--3.91 μm wavelength range and paving the way to the fabrication of a low-cost and easy-to-pump middle infrared fiber laser.