In this paper,a cladding-pumped erbium-ytterbium co-doped random fiber laser(EYRFL)operating at 1550 nm with high power laser diode(LD)is proposed and experimentally demonstrated for the first time.The laser cavity includes a 5-m-long erbium-ytterbium co-doped fiber that serves as the gain medium,as well as a 2-km-long single-mode fiber(SMF)to provide random distributed feedback.As a result,stable 2.14 W of 1550 nm random lasing at 9.80 W of 976 nm LD pump power and a linear output with the slope efficiency as 22.7%are generated.This simple and novel random fiber laser could provide a promising way to develop high power 1.5μm light sources.
