A 61-mJ,1-kHz cryogenic Yb:YAG laser amplifier

We report a diode-pumped rod-type Yb:YAG laser amplifier operating at 1 kHz.Cryogenic cooling method was adopted to make the Yb:YAG crystal work with four-level behavior.A single-frequency fiber laser acts as the seed in an actively Q-switched Yb:YAG oscillator.The resonator delivers 5.75-mJ pulses at 1 kHz with a pulse duration of approximately 40 ns.The pulses were amplified to 61 mJ in a four-pass rod-type Yb:YAG amplifier with optical-to-optical efficiency of 24%in the main amplifier.The M^(2)parameter of the output laser is<1.4.

22 kW near-diffraction-limited Yb:YAG slab laser amplifier without adaptive optics correction

A high-power CW Yb:YAG slab laser amplifier with no adaptive optics correction has been experimentally established.At room temperature,the amplifier emits a power of 22 kW with an average beam quality(β)of less than 3 in 0.5 min.To our knowledge,this is the brightest slab laser without closed-loop adaptive optics demonstrated to date.In addition,an extracted power of 17 kW with an optical extraction efficiency of 33%,corresponding to a residual optical path difference of less than 0.5μm,is achieved with the single Yb:YAG slab gain module.The slab gain module has the potential to be scalable to higher powers while maintaining good beam quality.This makes a high-power solid-state laser system simpler and more robust.

1 J,1 Hz lamp-pumped high-gain Nd:phosphate glass laser amplifier

We present a lamp-pumped Nd： phosphate glass laser amplifier delivering up to 1 J of pulse energy at 1053 nm with a repetition rate of 1 Hz and an injected pulse energy of 2.5 mJ. The amplifier system employs a beamshaping module and a four-pass, lamp-pumped amplifier. The thermally induced wavefront distortion is mitigated and a uniform gain distribution is obtained by a four-lamp-pmnped laser head in the amplifier. Thus, an excellent beam quality is obtained.

High-beam-quality, 5.4 J, 5 Hz diode-pumped Nd:YAG active mirror laser amplifier

A high-beam-quality diode-pumped neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet(Nd:YAG) active mirror laser amplifier was demonstrated. The size of the Nd:YAG crystal was 48 mm × 42 mm × 11 mm with 0.6 at.% Nd doped. When the pump energy was 26.8 J and the input energy was 0.3 J, the output pulse energy reached 5.4 J, and the pulse width of 11.3 ns at a 5 Hz repetition rate was obtained for the two gain modules in three-pass amplification, with corresponding optical-to-optical efficiency of 21.2%. The beam quality was measured as M_x^2=2.48 and M_y^2=2.43 in horizontal and vertical directions, respectively.

All-fiber laser seeded femtosecond Yb:KGW solid state regenerative amplifier

A high efficiency compact Yb:KGW regenerative amplifier using an all-fiber laser seed source was comprehensively studied.With thermal lensing effect compensated by the cavity design,the compressed pulses with energy of 1 mJ at 1 kHz and 0.4 mJ at 10 kHz in sub-400-fs pulse duration using chirped fiber Bragg grating(CFBG)stretcher were demonstrated.A modified Frantz-Nodvik equation was developed to emulate the dynamic behavior of the regenerative amplifier.The simulation results were in good agreement with the experiment.Numerical simulations and experimental results show that the scheme can be scalable to higher energy of multi-mJ,sub-300 fs pulses.

The 5.2 kW Nd：YAG Slab Amplifier Chain Seeded by Nd：YVO4 Innoslab Laser

A high power Nd：YAG end-pumped slab amplifier chain with a Nd：YVO4 innoslab laser as the master oscillator is demonstrated. A chain output power of 5210 W with beam quality of 4 times the diffraction limit is achieved by double-passing the first amplifier stage and single-passing the second stage with an optical efficiency of 29% while working at a frequency of 1kHz and pulse width of 200 μs.

A Novel Planar Waveguide Laser

A new planar waveguide laser was demonstrated. The output energy of 400 mW was achieved by a single waveguide laser;the slope efficiency was 61%. The single waveguide laser can expand to waveguide laser group and waveguide laser array to produce higher energy.

Fiber core mode leakage induced by refractive index variation in high-power fiber laser

This paper presents an investigation of specific optical fiber core mode leakage behavior that occurs in high-power double-clad fiber lasers as a result of thermally-induced refractive index variations. A model of the power transfer between the core modes and the cladding modes during thermally-induced refractive index variations is established based on the mode coupling theory. The results of numerical simulations based on actual laser parameters are presented. Experimental measurements were also carried out, the results showed good agreement with the corresponding simulation results.

Nonlinear Propagation of Coupling Optical Pulse under Compton Scattering in Laser Medium

After considering Kerr nonlinear effect, group velocity dispersion of host and gain distribution of active particle in laser amplifying medium, a basic equation describing propagation of the coupling optical pulse under the multi-photon nonlinear Compton scattering in the laser amplifying medium has been deduced. Besides, the profile and power spectrum of a picosecond-level super-Gaussian coupling pulse in the laser amplifying medium have been discussed when its central frequency coincides with the gain peak frequency of the laser amplifying medium.

Low-repetition-rate, all-polarization-maintaining Yb-doped fiber laser mode-locked by a semiconductor saturable absorber

A low-repetition-rate, all-polarization-maintaining（PM）-fiber sub-nanosecond oscillator is presented, which is simple and low-cost, composed of standard components. The ring cavity is elongated by 114-m-long standard PM fiber, and passively mode-locked by a fiber pigtailed semiconductor saturable absorber. Linearly polarized pulses with 1.66 MHz repetition rate and 22 dB polarization extinction ratio are generated at a wavelength of 1030 nm, which is determined by an intracavity filter. In addition, to demonstrate that the oscillator is a good seed for high energy pulse generation, an all-fiber master oscillator power amplifier is built and amplified pulses with energy about 2 μJ are obtained.

Influence of mode competition on beam quality of fiber amplifier

Theoretical and experimental studies of the influence of the mode competition on the output beam quality of fiber amplifiers are presented. Rate equations and modal decomposition method are used in the theoretical model. In the experiment, the output beam-quality factor of a fiber amplifier, which is based on a Yb-doped double-clad large mode area fiber as a function of the seed beam quality and the pump power of the amplifier, is measured. The experimental results are consistent with the theoretical analysis.

Generation of 207-femtosecond pulses from a ytterbium figure-of-eight fibre laser

We report the generation of 207-fs pulses with 1.2 mW average power at 1036 nm directly from a passively modelocked Yb-doped fibre laser with a nonlinear optical loop mirror for mode-locking and pairs of diffraction gratings for intracavity dispersion compensation. These results imply a 4-fold reduction in pulse duration over previously reported figure-of-eight cavity passively mode-locked Yb-doped fibre lasers. Stable pulse trains are produced at the fundamental repetition rate of the resonator, 24.0 MHz. On the other hand, this laser offers a cleaner spectrum and greater stability and is completely self-starting.

260 fs,403 W coherently combined fiber laser with precise high‑order dispersion management

An ultrafast fiber laser system comprising two coherently combined amplifier channels is reported.Within this system,each channel incorporates a rod-type fiber power amplifier,with individual operations reaching approximately 233 W.The active-locking of these coherently combined channels,followed by compression using gratings,yields an output with a pulse energy of 504μJ and an average power of 403 W.Exceptional stability is maintained,with a 0.3%root mean square(RMS)deviation and a beam quality factor M^(2)<1.2.Notably,precise dispersion management of the front-end seed light effectively compensates for the accumulated high-order dispersion in subsequent amplification stages.This strategic approach results in a significant reduction in the final output pulse duration for the coherently combined laser beam,reducing it from 488 to 260 fs after the gratings compressor,while concurrently enhancing the energy of the primary peak from 65%to 92%.

Numerical modeling of the thermally induced core laser leakage in high power co-pumped ytterbium doped fiber amplifier

We propose a novel model to explain the physical process of the thermally induced core laser leakage(TICLL) effect in a high power co-pumped ytterbium doped fiber(YDF) amplifier. This model considers the thermally induced mode bending loss decrease and the thermally induced mode instability(TMI) in the coiled YDF, and is further used to reproduce the TICLL effect in the high power co-pumped step-index 20/400 fiber amplifier. Besides, the TICLL effect in the copumping scheme and counter-pumping scheme is compared. The result proves that the TICLL effect is caused by the combined effect of the thermally induced mode bending loss decrease and the TMI, and could be mitigated by adopting the counter-pumping scheme. To our best knowledge, this is the first theoretical explanation of the TICLL effect in high power fiber amplifier.

7 kHz sub-nanosecond microchip laser amplified by a grazing incidence double pass slab amplifier

To obtain short pulse width and high peak power laser, a 7 kHz sub-nanosecond microchip laser amplified by a grazing incidence double pass slab amplifier is experimentally demonstrated in this Letter. We use a compact side-pumped Nd∶YVO4 bounce amplifier with grazing incidence beam for achieving high gains and power extraction. Laser output power of 7.37 W at 7 kHz, 1.2 MW pulse peak power with 877 ps duration and 1.05 mJ energy, 25 pm spectral width, and near diffraction limited mode beam quality are achieved, and the optical-to-optical efficiency is 18%. The laser is packaged in a volume of 356 mm × 226 mm × 84 mm and may be used for applications such as laser altimeters and ladar systems.

Theoretical Study of SOA-Based Wavelength Conversion with NRZ and RZ Format at 40 Gb/s

We theoretically discuss 40 Gb/s semiconductor optical amplifier （SOA）-based wavelength conversion （WC） using a detuning optical bandpass Jilter based on ultrafast dynamic characteristics of SOA. Both the inverted and noninverted WCs are obtained by shifting the filter central wavelength with respect to the probe wavelength when input data signal is in return-to-zero （RZ） format. However, we can obtain format conversion from nonreturn- to-zero （NRZ） to pseudo-return-to-zero （PRZ） and inverted WC when the input signal is in NRZ format.

Powerful 2 μm Silica Fiber Sources: A Review of Recent Progress and Prospects

A review on the progress of powerful 2 μm silica fiber sources in past decades is presented. We review the state-of-the-art records and representative achievements of 2 μm high-average-power continuous- wave, pulsed fiber lasers and amplifiers, and powerful superfluorescent sources. Challenges which limit the further power scaling of 2 μm silica fiber sources are discussed, including pumping brightness limitation, thermal problem and nonlinear effects. Potential and promising roadmaps to go beyond these limitations, like tandem pumping and beam combining, are discussed. Prospects of powerful 2 μm silica fiber sources are also presented in the end of paper.

73 nJ, 109 fs Yb-doped fiber laser at 19 MHz repetition rate in amplifier similariton regime

We report femtosecond pulse generation in an amplifier similariton oscillator and a prechirped fiber amplifier system. The final output power is 1.4W, and the fundamental repetition rate is 19.1 MHz after a single state fiber amplifier. The pulsewidth is 109 fs.

All-fiberized and narrow-linewidth 5 kW power-level fiber amplifier based on a bidirectional pumping configuration

In this paper,an all-fiberized and narrow-linewidth 5 kW power-level fiber amplifier is presented.The laser is achieved based on the master oscillator power amplification configuration,in which the phase-modulated single-frequency laser is applied as the seed laser and a bidirectional pumping configuration is applied in the power amplifier.The stimulated Brillouin scattering,stimulated Raman scattering,and transverse mode instability effects are all effectively suppressed in the experiment.Consequently,the output power is scaled up to 4.92 kW with a slope efficiency of as high as approximately 80%.The 3-dB spectral width is about 0.59 nm,and the beam quality is measured to be M^(2)~1.22 at maximum output power.Furthermore,we have also conducted a detailed spectral analysis on the spectral width of the signal laser,which reveals that the spectral wing broadening phenomenon could lead to the obvious decrease of the spectral purity at certain output power.Overall,this work could provide a reference for obtaining and optimizing high-power narrow-linewidth fiber lasers.

Design of large mode area all-solid anti-resonant fiber for high-power lasers

High-power fiber lasers have experienced a dramatic development over the last decade.Further increasing the output power needs an upscaling of the fiber mode area,while maintaining a single-mode output.Here,we propose an all-solid anti-resonant fiber(ARF)structure,which ensures single-mode operation in broadband by resonantly coupling higherorder modes into the cladding.A series of fibers with core sizes ranging from 40 to 100µm are proposed exhibiting maximum mode area exceeding 5000µm2.Numerical simulations show this resonant coupling scheme provides a higher-order mode(mainly TE01,TM01,and HE21)suppression ratio of more than 20 dB,while keeping the fundamental mode loss lower than 1 dB/m.The proposed structure also exhibits high tolerance for core index depression.