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.     

30.6 W CW Tm3+ fiber laser of seed amplification

We use all fiber single-mode lasers as seed source, all fiber amplifiers and pump laser coupling amplifier has been experimentally investigated, respectively. The max output power of all fiber amplifier is 30.6 W, corresponding slope efficiency is 39.1%. The two setups, amplifier output laser spectrum finely holds the property of seed laser spectrum, the wavelength of output laser are both 1947.6 nm, the spectrum width is less than 2 nm as same as the wavelength of seed laser. We estimate the beam quality to be M ² = 2.42, clearly indicating nearly diffraction-limited beam propagation.     

Tapered fiber amplifier with high gain and output power

We present a high-power ytterbium fiber amplifier based on active tapered double-clad fiber (T-DCF) and capable of high single-pass gain. The T-DCF power amplifier seeded with a 320 mW narrow-band signal generates up to 110 W of average output power corresponding to more than 25 dB gain. The amplifier exhibits near-diffraction-limited beam quality (M ² = 1.06) at the highest output power, which was limited by the available pump power. With a broadband seed source, the amplifier produced a gain of nearly 40 dB obtained for low-signal limit of the seed. The high output power combined with high gain is achieved owing to amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) filtering and increased stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) threshold inherent to the axially non-uniform geometry. The amplifier operates efficiently with a wide range of input seed powers thus providing the basis for one-stage tapered amplifier which combines the functions of preamplifier and power amplifier and can be a competitive alternative to multi-stage design.     

Amplification of a <Emphasis Type="Italic">Q</Emphasis>-Switched Ho:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> Oscillator in Thulium-Doped Large-Mode-Area Fiber

We report a high peak power, narrow linewidth, stable pulsed Ho:GdVO₄ amplifier based on thuliumdoped fiber, which produces 6.65 W average output power at 2,048 nm and 56.8 kW peak power with 11.7 ns pulse width at 10 kHz repetition rate. We use a simple Q-switched Ho:GdVO₄ laser as a seed laser and a thulium-doped fiber pumped by a 792 nm laser diode as an amplifier. The fiber amplifier provided 6.5 dB gain to the input signal. The spectral linewidth of the Ho:GdVO₄ amplifier remains < 0.5 nm with an M² beam quality of 1.36.     

Degradation of beam quality and depolarization of the laser beam in a step-index multimode optical fiber

The characteristics of a laser beam are altered during propagating through large-core multimode optical fibers. The distribution of modes excited by the input laser beam is modified by means of mode coupling on transmission through the fiber, leading to the degradation of beam quality and the depolarization of the delivered beam. The relationship between the beam quality factor (M²) of output beam from a large-core multimode fiber and the fiber length, as well as the relationship between the degree of polarization (V) of output beam from such a fiber and the fiber length, are introduced in this paper. When a laser beam was well launched into a large-core step-index multimode fiber, M² of the output beam was a compound tanh function of the fiber length. A linear polarization beam that well launched into such fiber suffered depolarization. The V of the output beam was an exponent function of fiber length. And the misalignment between beam axis and fiber axis made the beam quality degrade faster but made no difference of the utmost M² in the aligned and misaligned conditions. Also, the misalignment condition made the polarization of output beam degrade faster.     

High-power master-oscillator power-amplifier with optical vortex output

A high-power master-oscillator power-amplifier with optical vortex output is reported. The master oscillator for an optical vortex seed beam is a simple two-mirror Nd:YAG laser using a fiber-based pump beam conditioning scheme. The seed is amplified in a double-clad multimode fiber amplifier end-pumped by a high-power diode laser at 975 nm yielding 10.7 W of continuous-wave output at 1064 nm in the first-order Laguerre–Gaussian beam with M ² ≈ 2.11 for an absorbed pump power of 17.5 W, corresponding to a slope efficiency of ~59 %. The ring-shaped intensity profile and the wave front handedness of the seed beam were well preserved in the fiber amplifier. The prospects of power scaling via this approach are discussed.     

High power single transverse mode operation of a tapered large-mode-area fiber laser

To get high output power with good beam quality, a tapered section is introduced to large-mode-area (LMA) Yb-doped fiber laser. Output characteristics of the fiber laser without tapered section and with tapered section are compared experimentally. When the launched pump power is 119.1 W, 77.9 W with M² 3.08 and 56.4 W with M² 1.14 can be obtained, respectively. The corresponding slope efficiencies are 71.8% and 54.1%, respectively. Although output power of the tapered fiber laser has 30.6% penalty, brightness of it is as much as 5.28 times of the fiber laser without tapered section. Moreover, spectra of them are measured. It is found that tapered section makes lasing wavelength of the fiber laser shorter.     

High efficiency Tm fiber laser of seed amplification

We use all-fiber single-mode lasers as seed source, amplifiers and pump laser coupling amplifier has been experimentally investigated, respectively. The maximum output power is 10.4 W, with the slope efficiency of 54.4% when the seed laser power is 1 W, and the slope efficiency is 48.7% when the seed laser power is 2 W. The slope efficiency of this scheme is higher than that of the all-fiber amplifier. This can be explained by the loss of pump power at the splice dots. The wavelength of the fiber amplifier is 1947.6 nm, the same as the seed laser's, with a linewidth of 2 nm. We estimate the beam quality to be M² = 2.39, clearly indicating nearly diffraction-limited beam propagation.     

Analysis of TEM00 laser beam quality degradation caused by a birefringent Nd: YAG rod

The effects produced by a birefringent rod on the beam quality factor,M _infr ^sup2 , of a Gaussian TEM₀₀ laser beam are studied. Analytical expressions for the beam parameters at the output plane of a rod amplifier are derived. The theory predicts that the beam quality degrades rapidly with the heat power dissipated in the rod.     

多模光纤放大器输出光分析

根据不同的泵浦方式,对多模光纤放大器运用多模速率方程组,采用四阶龙格-库塔法数值计算和分析了在不同泵浦方式下的泵浦效率和信号光在光纤放大器中的传输、放大行为,并研究了在光纤放大器光纤长度有微小变化(mm量级)的情况下,输出光的光束质量与光纤长度的关系。结果表明:输出信号光的光束质量因子随光纤长度微小变化而呈准周期变化,周期与信号光耦合入光纤放大器的本征模式间的传播常数差有关。     

Simple optoelectronic method for analysis of transverse mode structure of lasers

Laser beam quality evaluation is generally carried out through the measurement of the M² second-moment. This standard procedure is time consuming and is difficult to be implemented for checking, for instance, each VCSEL diode moving out of the assembly line of a high volume production factory. In this paper, we propose an alternative fast method allowing to distinguish easily a single transverse mode from a multiple transverse mode behaviour. This method is based on an electronic analysis (locking amplifier) of the local slope of the output laser characteristic, i.e. laser output power versus pumping.     

高功率可调谐1064 nm准连续单频激光振荡-放大系统研究

研制了高功率可调谐1064 nm准连续单频激光振荡-放大系统.振荡级采用三镜环形行波腔型结构的Nd:YAG激光器,通过精确控制腔内标准具的温度改变标准具材质折射率和厚度实现了对激光波长的调谐,获得了13.2 W调谐范围为58 GHz的1064 nm准连续单频振荡光,其重复率为1 kHz,占空比为10%.经过由双Nd:YAG激光头串接构成的放大器对振荡光进行双程放大后激光最终输出功率为44 W,光束质量因子M²= 1.58. 关键词： 可调谐激光 单频激光 标准具 振荡-放大系统     

Yb3+-doped 200 μm diameter core, gain guided index-antiguided fiber

The lasing in an end-pumped gain guided index-antiguided (GG-IAG) Yb³⁺-doped silicate glass fiber with a 200 μm diameter core is demonstrated. Laser beams with similar beam propagation factors M ² and mode field diameters W ₀ (>160 μm) were observed at the output end of the GG-IAG fibers under different pump powers, which indicated that single mode behavior and excellent beam quality were achieved during propagation. Furthermore, the laser amplifier characteristics in the present Yb³⁺-doped GG-IAG fiber were also evaluated.     

Continuous-wave Ho:GdVO4 laser pumped by Tm-doped fiber laser with a fiber Bragg grating at room temperature

We reported the Ho:GdVO₄ laser pumped by Tm-doped laser with a fiber Bragg grating. 2.03 W continuous-wave Ho:GdVO₄ laser output power is obtained under 10.5 W incident pump power, with the optical-to-optical conversion efficiency and slope efficiency of 19.3% and 32.3%, respectively, at 7 °C. We can see that, the lower the temperature is, the better the laser output character is. The beam quality factor is M² ∼ 1.29 measured by the traveling knife-edge method.     

QCW diode-pumped 654 W AO Q-switched Nd:YAG rod oscillator-amplifier laser

A diode laser-pumped acoustic-optic Q-switched Nd:YAG master-oscillator power amplifier laser is presented. The laser is quasi continuously pumped at 1.1 kHz with a pulse width of 172 μs, and the ultrasonic frequency of the AO Q-switcher is set at a higher value (53 kHz). The master oscillator is designed as a thermally near-unstable-resonator, which presents an average output power of 48 W with a beam quality value of M² = 1.41 and a Q-switching pulse duration of 121 ns. The maximum average power of the MOPA system is 654 W, and the beam quality is M² = 6.     

8.9-W continuous-wave, diode-end-pumped all-solid-state Nd:YVO4 laser operating at 914 nm

A high power laser-diode-array end-pumped 0.2 at % Nd:YVO₄ continuous-wave (CW) laser operating at 914 nm is reported in this letter. The maximum output power of 8.9 W was obtained at the incident pump power of 48.0 W, giving the corresponding optical efficiency of 18.5% and the average slope efficiency of 25.7%. The beam quality factor was measured to be M ² = 2.71 at the output power of 8.0 W by the traveling knife-edge method.     

光纤激光共孔径光谱合成实现5kW高效优质输出

采用多层介质膜衍射光栅实现多路高功率光纤激光共孔径光谱合成有望成为光纤激光同时实现高功率、高效率和高光束质量的最具发展潜力的技术途径。搭建了一套基于双光栅色散补偿设计的5kW共孔径光谱合成系统。采用国产多层介质膜衍射光栅实现了5路kW级窄谱子束激光的高效优质共孔径光谱合成,最大输出功率达5.07kW,光束质量因子(M2)小于3,合成效率达到91.2%。初步研究表明:多层介质膜衍射光栅在较高功率水平、较宽光谱范围内均能保持较高衍射效率,是实现高功率光纤激光高效率光谱合成的重要器件;参与合成的子束自身的光束质量水平和线宽是影响合成输出光束质量的重要因素,光谱合成系统的输出功率主要受限于窄谱子束的输出功率和合成路数,增加窄谱子束的功率或合成路数均可进一步提升系统的输出功率。     

Coherent and incoherent combining of fiber array with hexagonal ring distribution

Beam combining of fiber array with hexagonal ring distribution is studied in detail. The theoretical analysis and numerical calculation results are given to illustrate the propagation properties of the resulting beam through free space. A comparison between the coherent and the incoherent case shows that high peak irradiance and good beam quality for coherent combining can be obtained in the far field. The effect of phase errors and the beam quality M² factor are also studied. Results indicate that the element numbers should be increased to achieve high power and the space between adjacent elements should be reduced to maintain good beam quality, which is basically the same for both coherent and incoherent beam combining.     

Simultaneous all-solid-state multi-wavelength lasers --- a promising pump source for generating highly coherent terahertz waves

A diode-end-pumped Nd:YAG dual-wavelength laser operating at 1319 and 1338 nm is demonstrated. The maximum average output power of the quasi-continuous wave linearly polarized dual-wavelength laser is obtained to be 2.1 W at a repetition rate of 50 kHz with an output power instability of less than 0.38% and beam quality factor M² of 1.45. Using the two lines, the highly coherent and narrow linewidth terahertz radiation of 3.23 THz can be generated in an organic 4-N, N-dimethylamino--methyl-stilbazolium tosylate (DAST) crystal. Meanwhile, the multi-wavelength red laser at 659.5, 664 and 669 nm is generated by frequency doubling and sum frequency processes in a lithium triborate (LBO) crystal. The average red laser output power is enhanced up to 1.625 W at a repetition rate of 15 kHz with an output power instability of better than 0.53% and beam quality factor M² of 6.05. Using the three lines, it is possible to generate the multi-wavelength THz radiation of 3.3, 3.43 and 6.73 THz in an appropriate difference frequency crystal.     

Characteristics of pulse fiber amplifier with China-made LMA fiber and (6+1)×1 multimode combiner

A pulse master-oscillator fiber power amplifier system with china-made large-mode-area fiber and a (6+1)×1 multimode combiner is demonstrated. The system generates up to 4.8 W of amplified radiation (100 kHz) at a wavelength of 1064 nm with a near-diffraction-limited beam quality (M²=1.2), and the overall slope efficiency with respect to the launched pump power is 50%. Some basic characteristics of this system, including the pulse-amplification characteristics, the gain characteristics, as well as the emission spectrum characteristics are investigated in detail.