Spectral broadening in narrow linewidth, continuous-wave high power fiber amplifiers

We present an investigation on the spectrum broadening in continuous-wave, sub-nanometer linewidth high power fiber amplifiers caused by the multiple four-wave mixing (FWM) process. The spectrum broadening employing two different types of narrow linewidth seeds, including the multi-longitudinal-mode seed and the broadened single frequency seed generated by high speed phase modulation, is studied. It is shown both theoretically and experimentally that the multi-longitudinal-mode seed experiences serious spectrum broadening induced by the FWM among various longitudinal modes, while the modulated seed can maintain the spectrum profile during the amplifying process even with some noise fluctuation. The different broadening results are mainly caused by the random phase distribution of the multiple waves. It is further explained by an exact solution of the degenerate FWM with three waves. The theoretical predictions on the spectrum and power dependence of the output laser linewidth are in quantitative agreement with the experimental results up to kilowatt.