Manifestation of optical feedback in power and spectral radiation properties of a Raman fiber laser with randomly distributed feedback well above generation threshold

Spectral properties of Raman fiber lasers with randomly distributed feedback well above generation threshold are mainly defined by nonlinear interactions in the fiber. The role of randomly distributed feedback hence is expected to be negligible, though this problem has not been investigated particularly. We numerically study spectral properties of a random fiber laser and a corresponding fiber amplifier with no feedback and emphasize the importance of Rayleigh backscattering: having marginal influence on generation efficiency, it affects the generation spectrum shape and width.