Proceedings Article | 9 February 2009
KEYWORDS: Fiber lasers, Optical simulations, High power fiber lasers, Software development, Human-machine interfaces, Computer simulations, Ferroelectric LCDs, C++, Numerical simulations, Integration
Double-clad rare-earth-doped fiber laser is a new generation of high power solid-state lasers. The numerical simulation is
an important approach in the configuration design and parameter optimization for the high power fiber lasers (HPFLs).
In this paper, we report our user-friendly high-power fiber laser simulation software system, which integrates the design,
analysis and optimization functions together. The numerical simulations of the software are with the HPFL model based
on the rate-equation theory. By using the theoretical model, for specific laser cavity configuration, doped fiber
parameters and pump conditions, the distributions of the population inversion, forward and backward pump, and
circulating lasing intensity along the doped fiber can be calculated, and thus, the main output characteristics, such as
cavity gain, output power and laser efficiency, can be achieved accordingly. On the basis of the simulation results, the
software supplies the functions developed for designs and optimizations of the pump configuration, doped fiber length
and the reflectivity of output mirror. By combining the calculated mode-field distribution in doped fibers with the
mechanism of curvature loss to suppress the higher-order modes, the software also supplies the function for optimizing
the beam quality. With graphical user interface (GUI), all the functions of the software are provided function tools in
menu options, especially for those which may be used frequently, toolbar buttons, shortcut keys and pop-up menus are
also provided. The software is with single-document interface (SDI) and coded in C++ in the integrated development
environment of Visual C++ 6.0. We believe it would be very helpful for the investigation and development of HPFLs.
