Investigations of SBS and laser gain competition in high-power phase modulated fiber amplifiers

We present experimental results of SBS suppression in high power, monolithic, Yb-doped fiber amplifiers via phase modulated laser gain competition. To narrow the linewidth, two-tone laser gain competition between broad (1036 nm) and narrow linewidth (1064 nm) laser signals is investigated in conjunction with phase modulation and yields pump limited output powers of 600 W. Here integration of both two-tone and pseudo random bit sequence (PRBS) phase modulation concepts, generated SBS enhancement factors of greater than 17x at a modulation frequency of 500 MHz, without reaching the SBS threshold. Significantly, the results represent a near order of magnitude reduction in linewidth over current high-power, monolithic, Yb-doped fiber amplifiers.