The present invention provides an amplified spontaneous emission fiber optic source having high optical power (>20 mW) and a spectral broadband emission (>70 nm) centered near a wavelength of 1060 nm. In an embodiment of the invention, the fiber source comprises a combination of Yb-doped and Nd-doped silica fibers in a dual-pumping configuration. The Yb-doped optical fiber has a peak absorption coefficient of 350 dB/nm at 977 nm band, and the Nd-doped fiber used has a dopant concentration of 500 ppm-wt in a glass host of aluminum-germano-phospho-silicate. A combination of these two doped-fibers along with optical spectral filtering provides a broadband spectrum giving coherence length