{"id":1260,"date":"2022-11-03T08:01:09","date_gmt":"2022-11-03T08:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dkphotonics.com\/blog\/?p=1260"},"modified":"2022-11-03T08:01:11","modified_gmt":"2022-11-03T08:01:11","slug":"what-is-a-pump-and-signal-combiner-used-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dkphotonics.com\/blog\/what-is-a-pump-and-signal-combiner-used-for\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a pump and signal combiner used for?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pump and signal combiners are being used in a wide range of applications, such as fiber laser and amplifier, telecommunication in industrial and biomedical areas, metrology, life science, imaging, quantum optics, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To better understand a pump and signal combiner, you need to learn about pump combiners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is a Pump Combiner?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A pump combiner is originally a fiber-optic coupler designed to send pump and signal light into a fiber laser or fiber amplifier. It also goes by another name called pump couplers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certain fiber optic devices such as high-power fiber lasers and amplifiers are based on rare-earth doped double-clad fibers. In such devices, you can inject pump and signal light into such a fiber by simply focusing the light onto a bare fiber end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same thing is done for fiber amplifiers and fiber laser devices in the research stage. Industrial lasers are best if they are an all-fiber setup, where fiber-coupled pump laser diodes are directly connected to the active fiber via some passive transmission fibers, avoiding any air spaces in the path of the light signal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When using multimode optic fibers, one needs fiber-optic pump combiners as they facilitate better robustness and stability of devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some pump combiners can safely handle multiple kilowatts such as 10W or 30W, and they are called high-power pump combiners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is a pump and signal combiner?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A pump and signal combiner has two interfaces. On one interface, a fiber can be connected to a certain type of active fiber directly by using the fusion-splicing technique. Sometimes, there is an additional passive fiber between these two fibers to include a fiber Bragg grating if that cannot be written into an active fiber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other interface, the combiner has several input multimode fibers that can be connected to fiber-coupled pump laser diodes. In addition, there is another single-mode fiber or a few-mode fiber for injection or extraction of the signal light. Though no signal light needs to be injected in the the case of a fiber laser, laser light needs to be extracted from one end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, when a pump combiner also has an additional fiber for signal light extraction or injection, it is referred to as a pump and signal combiner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An (N+1) x1 pump and signal combiner<\/a> can combine or couple N pump lasers and 1 signal channel into one fiber and create a high-power pump laser source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the uses of pump-and-signal combiners?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The applications of pump and signal combiners have become very diverse and seeing even more expansion. Some of the most important uses and applications of pump and signal combiners are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n