Applications of rare-earth-doped fibres

Abstract
Rare-earth-doped fiber lasers and their applications are reviewed. Erbium-doped fiber lasers operating around 1.55 /spl mu/m and thulium-doped fiber lasers operating around 1.9 /spl mu/m are described. Mode-locking, Q-switching, wavelength tuning, and narrow and broad linewidth operation are discussed. Presented applications of fiber lasers include lidar, remote sensing, coherent detection, and fiber gyroscope sources.<>