954 nm Raman fiber laser with multimode laser diode pumping

CW Raman fiber laser emitting at 954 nm under direct pumping by a high-power multimode laser diode at 915 nm is demonstrated. A cavity of the laser is formed with 2.5 km-long multimode graded-index fiber and two mirrors: highly reflective fiber Bragg grating (FBG) at one side and normally cleaved fiber end at the other side. The laser generates low-index transverse modes at the Stokes wavelength with output power above 4 W at a slope efficiency above 40%. It is shown that utilization of a narrowband FBG mirror with low reflectivity instead of the cleaved fiber end with Fresnel reflection leads to stronger spectral mode selection, but the generated power is reduced in this case.