Challenges and future trends in fiber lasers

Fiber lasers are a fast growing class of lasers due to their reliability, efficiency and flexibility. This has made fiber lasers a versatile tool for manufacturing, sensing and healthcare, not forgetting the contribution of Erbium-doped amplifiers to optical communications. Yet available wavelengths by direct emission are quite restricted to the visible and near infrared wavelength interval (500 nm to 2 micron), with very few offering high power and efficient operation, namely 1 micron, 1.5 micron and 2 micron wavelengths. In this paper we comment on the state of the art and future challenges in the field of fiber lasers to address new wavelength and new applications. In particular to extended the emission interval above 3 micron. This work collects the experience of the COST MP1401 Network on fiber lasers and their application and will present some of the areas were efforts have been focused. More exhaustive material will be presented at the conference.