Although inelastic scattering of light from molecules, a phenomenon now known as Raman scattering, was observed by C. V. Raman in 1928, the nonlinear phenomenon of stimulated Raman scattering was not demonstrated until 1962. Soon after low-loss silica fibers became available around 1970, Roger Stolen and coworkers used stimulated Raman scattering in such fibers not only for amplification of optical signals but also for constructing fiber-based Raman lasers. The potential of Raman amplification for compensating fiber losses in lightwave systems was demonstrated during the 1980s in several experiments performed by Linn Mollenauer and his coworkers. However, these experiments employed bulky color-center lasers for pumping and were not practical for deployment of.
