We report on the observation of a new phenomenon occurring in a fiber ring laser. This phenomenon is about the transition from an initially bidirectional emission of a reciprocal fiber ring laser to a unidirectional emission at a certain pump power threshold. In addition, the final direction is not predefined but appears to be randomly chosen every time the threshold is exceeded. Therefore, we term this new phenomenon direction instability. Furthermore, we provide a first discussion of how the instability threshold is influenced by the length and the loss of the cavity. We show that the threshold follows a power times length scaling, indicating a nonlinear origin.
We report on a new and simple approach for continuous wave supercontinuum generation in optical fibers. Our new approach uses the effect of stimulated Stokes Raman scattering in a low loss fiber ring laser. By continuously pumping this ring laser with up to 19 W optical power we excited up to six Stokes orders and covered a wavelength range of 500 nm. Due to the feedback mechanism of the ring layout additional nonlinear effects occurred next to the plain generation of individual Stokes peaks. Eventually, these effects broaden and merge the separated Stokes peaks and create a single, connected continuous supercontinuum. By using the effect of stimulated Stokes Raman scattering, we do not rely on anomalous dispersion and modulation instability as typically required for continuous wave supercontinuum generation.
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