Modelling and design of lanthanide ion doped chalcogenide fiber lasers: progress towards the practical realization of the first MIR chalcogenide fiber laser

This paper presents the progress in the fields of the modelling and design of lanthanide ion doped chalcogenide glass fiber lasers. It presents the laser cavity designs that have been developed in order to optimize the performance of lanthanide ion doped chalcogenide glass fiber lasers. Also various numerical algorithms that have been applied for the optimization of chalcogenide glass lasers are reviewed and compared. The comparison shows that a combination of less accurate but more robust algorithms with more accurate ones gives the most promising performance.