Noise-like Pulses as a Source of Pump Energy
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper presents an interesting laser concept that should be included in the fundamentals of fiber lasers. The author disproves a widely accepted opinion that noise-like pulses commonly generated by the fiber lasers are just evidence of their imperfect design or poor adjustment. Analyzing a number of experimental results, the author proves the advanced applicability of the noise-like pulses as a pump energy source of noise-like pulses, which may feature relatively high energy parameters due to the absence of a phase relationship between the electromagnetic field of the pump and that of the output laser radiation. Besides, the author explores the questions crucial for this application: configurations for noise-like pulse generation that hold significant potential, specific aspects of amplification and compression, as well as characterization of parameters of these pulses. I thoroughly tried to find any inconsistency in the author’s consideration but failed to do that: the present concept is firmly based on the experimental results already approved by the laser physics community; the analogy with the random lasing concept is also transparently clear. I think that the reported idea will significantly impact the fiber lasers and probably will be applied soon to a number of the associated problems (similar to how the random laser concept has evolved in past decades). The manuscript will undoubtedly be fascinating for many people working in laser science and technology. Besides, the manuscript is clearly written and well referenced; its somehow unusual format suits the spirit of Photonics publication.
In conclusion, I do strongly recommend the paper for publication in Photonics.
The manuscript could be published as it is.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This work presents an interesting application of the noise-like pulses, which can be utilized as the pulsed pump laser. Before publishing this paper on Photonics, I think further descriptions are necessary to explain why we need the noise-like pulsed pump laser instead of directly using the high-power Q-switched laser or the active modulated pulsed laser generated by optical chopping. I think this is the key point that this manuscript needs to present further discussions.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The author introduced the generation, characterization, compression, amplification, etc. of noise-like pulses. This comprehensive introduction is well written and can be useful to beginners in this field.
However, I have one concern about the manuscript. The topic of this manuscript, as indicated by the title ("Noise-like pulses as source of pump energy"), is the application of noise-like pulses as a pump source, but the relevant content (Section 7. Discussion) is kind of weak (This section takes up a relatively small proportion of the manuscript), which makes it inappropriate. Therefore, I would suggest that the author enrich the content of this part by including more previously reported research results and classifying them into different categories. And the author should provide further discussion and give an outlook. In this way, the topic of this manuscript can be more prominent.
Besides, the term 'source' in the title should better be corrected into 'a source'.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript is acceptable now, but the title should be corrected (The author claims the title has been changed into 'a source' instead of 'source', however, it is not changed in its current form).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
sorry for the inattention, I have changed title of the work in line with
your comment.
Best regards,
Sergey Kobtsev
https://lls.nsu.ru/english/kobtsev.htm
