Experimental investigation of thermal characteristics of erbium doped distributed feedback fiber laser output power

The temperature dependence of erbium doped distributed feedback fiber laser (DFB-FL) output characteristics is experimentally investigated. The output power decreased linearly as temperature increased from 30° to 120° for 980nm and 1480nm pumped DFB-FL while 1480nm pumped DFB-FL showed higher thermal sensitivity. Comparison of the output variation under heating between four DFB-FLs of different phase shift location revealed that asymmetric grating design is more suitable to resist high temperature induced reflectivity change of the laser resonant cavity.