Mode-locked 0.5 μJ fiber laser at 976 nm

We report on high-energy femtosecond pulse generation from an ytterbium-doped rod-type fiber oscillator emitting around 976 nm. Self-starting and stable single-pulse operation are demonstrated with 4.2 W of average output power at a repetition rate of 8.4 MHz. The resulting energy level reaches 0.5 μJ. Because of the all-normal dispersion of the laser cavity, output pulses are naturally chirped with a duration of 14 ps. External compression using diffraction gratings shortens the pulse duration down to 460 fs.     

57 W, 27 fs pulses from a fiber laser system using nonlinear compression

We report on the generation of 27 fs pulses with an average output power of 57 W and a repetition rate of 78 MHz. The pulses are generated by combining a high average power fiber chirped pulse amplification (FCPA) system with a microstructured large-mode-area fiber for nonlinear compression. The FCPA system delivers 270 fs pulses in a linearly polarized beam with diffraction-limited quality. Nonlinear compression is achieved by launching the pulses into a short (few cm) piece of microstructured fiber and subsequent compression by a pair of chirped mirrors. PACS  42.55.Wd; 42.55.Xi, 42.65.Re     

66 W average power from a microjoule-class sub-100 fs fiber oscillator

Performance scaling of passively mode-locked ultrashort-pulse fiber oscillators in terms of average power, peak power, and pulse energy is demonstrated. A very-large-mode-area fiber laser in an all-positive group-velocity-dispersion ring cavity configuration with intracavity spectral filter, mode-locked by nonlinear polarization evolution, emits 66 W of average power at 76 MHz repetition rate, corresponding to 0.9 μJ pulse energy. The pulses are dechirped to 91 fs outside the cavity with an average power of 60 W remaining after the compressor. The generated pulse peak power is as high as 7 MW.     

Ultrawide tunable Er soliton fiber laser amplified in Yb-doped fiber

A Raman-shifted and frequency-doubled high-power Er-fiber soliton laser for seeding an efficient high-power Yb fiber femtosecond amplifier is demonstrated. The Raman-shifted and frequency-doubled Er-soliton laser is tunable from 1.00 to 1.070microm and produces bandwidth-limited 24-pJ pulses at a repetition rate of 50 MHz with a FWHM pulse width of 170 fs at 1.040microm . The Yb(3+) amplifier has a slope efficiency of 52% and generates 3-ps linearly chirped pulses with an average power of 0.8 W at 1.05microm . After pulse compression, 74-fs bandwidth-limited pulses with an average power of 0.4 W and a pulse energy of 8 nJ are generated.     

High-power all-normal-dispersion femtosecond pulse generation from a Yb-doped large-mode-area microstructure fiber laser

We report on an all-normal-dispersion mode-locked fiber laser based on a large-mode-area Yb-doped microstructure fiber and using a high nonlinear modulation depth semiconductor saturable absorber mirror. The laser delivers 3.3 W of average output power with positively chirped 5.5 ps pulses at a center wavelength of 1033 nm. The pulse repetition rate is 46.4 MHz, which results in an energy per pulse of 71 nJ. These pulses are extracavity dechirped down to 516 fs by using bulk gratings. The average power of the dechirped pulses is 2.3 W, which corresponds to a peak power of more than 96 kW.     

High average and peak power femtosecond large-pitch photonic-crystal-fiber laser

We report on the generation of high-average-power and high-peak-power ultrashort pulses from a mode-locked fiber laser operating in the all-normal-dispersion regime. As gain medium, a large-mode-area ytterbium-doped large-pitch photonic-crystal fiber is used. The self-starting fiber laser delivers 27 W of average power at 50.57 MHz repetition rate, resulting in 534 nJ of pulse energy. The laser produces positively chirped 2 ps output pulses, which are compressed down to sub-100 fs, leading to pulse peak powers as high as 3.2 MW.     

基于非线性偏振旋转锁模的高功率光子晶体光纤飞秒激光振荡器

为了探索大模场面积光子晶体光纤锁模激光器在全正色散锁模域内的耗散孤子锁模机理, 以获得更大的单脉冲能量和更高的峰值功率, 本文搭建了以掺镱大模场面积光子晶体光纤作为增益介质的耗散孤子锁模激光器. 激光器使用环形腔结构, 利用非线性偏振旋转以及滤光片提供的耗散作用实现了稳定的锁模运转. 实验中, 从激光器振荡级直接获得了平均功率10 W, 重复频率49.09 MHz(对应202 nJ的单脉冲能量), 脉冲宽度为1.03 ps的稳定锁模脉冲输出, 经过腔外色散补偿得到的脉冲宽度为95.5 fs.     

High pulse energy mode-locked multicore photonic crystal fiber laser

A high pulse energy passively mode-locked fiber laser operating in the all-normal dispersion regime is demonstrated. The gain material is an Yb-doped multicore photonic crystal fiber with 18 cores in array-type geometry. Robust and self-starting mode locking is achieved using a fast semiconductor saturable absorber mirror. The laser generates 180?nJ chirped pulses at a 14.48?MHz repetition rate for an average power of 2.6?W. The 1.15?ps output pulses are compressed to 690?fs outside the cavity.     

多芯光子晶体光纤锁模激光器

实验研究了基于掺Yb多芯大模场面积光子晶体光纤的全正色散锁模激光器.增益光纤的18个纤芯呈六角阵列排布,等效的模场直径约为52 μm.激光器基于σ腔结构,腔内没有色散补偿元件,通过半导体可饱和吸收镜实现锁模的自启动.实验获得了平均功率为3.3 W,脉冲宽度为4.92 ps,重复频率为44.68 MHz的锁模脉冲输出,对应的单脉冲能量为74 nJ,脉冲经腔外光栅对压缩为780 fs. 关键词： 光子晶体光纤 多芯 光纤激光器 全正色散     

High-energy femtosecond fiber laser at 976 nm

We report on a passively mode-locked fiber laser emitting around 976nm. The self-starting mode locking is achieved in an unidirectional ring cavity by means of nonlinear polarization evolution. Stable single-pulse operation is observed for 480mW of average output power. This all-normal dispersion laser generates naturally chirped pulses with 1ps duration. The repetition rate is 40.6MHz, resulting in 12nJ pulse energy. External compression using bulk grating shortens the pulse duration down to 286fs.     

Passive coherent combination of two ultrafast rod type fiber chirped pulse amplifiers

Using passive coherent beam combining of two ultrafast fiber amplifiers, we demonstrate the generation of high temporal quality 300 fs and 650 μJ pulses corresponding to 60 W of average power at a repetition rate of 92 kHz. Furthermore, at 2 MHz of repetition rate record coherent combining average powers of 135 W before and 105 W after compression are measured. A combining efficiency higher than 90% is maintained over the whole range of output powers and repetition rates investigated demonstrating the efficiency and robustness of the passive combining technique. The measured pulse-to-pulse relative power fluctuation at high energy is 2%, indicating that the system is essentially immune to environmental phase noise. We believe the passive combining method to be an attractive approach for compact multi-GW peak power femtosecond fiber-based sources.     

Cavity-enhanced similariton Yb-fiber laser frequency comb: 3 x 10(14) W/cm2 peak intensity at 136 MHz

We report on a passive cavity-enhanced Yb-fiber laser frequency comb generating 230 MW of peak power (3 kW of average power) at a 136 MHz pulse repetition rate. The intracativy peak intensity of 3 x 10(14) W/cm2 for the 95 fs pulse is sufficient to ionize noble gases, such as Xe, Kr, or Ar. The laser system is based on a mode-locked Yb-fiber similariton oscillator in conjunction with a cladding-pumped chirped-pulse fiber amplifier. After recompression, 75 fs duration pulses at a 13.1 W average power are obtained. These pulses are then coherently added inside a passive ring cavity by controlling the fiber oscillator's pulse repetition rate and carrier-envelope offset frequency. This system is well suited for studying high-field phenomena at very high pulse repetition rates.     

Compression of long-cavity Ti:sapphire oscillator pulses with large-mode-area photonic crystal fibers

Motivated by the pulse compression challenge of novel long-cavity, high-pulse-energy Ti:sapphire laser oscillators, we report on ~280 nm supercontinuum generation and 4.5-times compression of close to transform limited, high-energy oscillator pulses using different large-mode-area photonic crystal fibers and standard chirped mirrors. As input, we used pulses of a long-cavity Ti:sapphire oscillator with 190 nJ pulse energy, 70 fs pulse length and 3.6 MHz repetition rate. Compressed pulses at the fiber/compressor output had a duration of 15–18 fs with up to 100 nJ pulse energy representing as much as 53 % throughput for the fiber/chirped mirror system. Using transform-limited input pulses, we could use short fiber pieces and thus a simple, low-dispersion chirped mirror compressor comprised of one pair of mirrors.     

High-power 200 fs Kerr-lens mode-locked Yb:YAG thin-disk oscillator

We demonstrate a power-scalable Kerr-lens mode-locked Yb:YAG thin-disk oscillator. It delivers 200 fs pulses at an average power of 17 W and a repetition rate of 40 MHz. At an increased (180 W) pump power level, the laser produces 270 fs 1.1 μJ pulses at an average power of 45 W (optical-to-optical efficiency of 25%). Semiconductor-saturable-absorber-mirror-assisted Kerr-lens mode locking (KLM) and pure KLM with a hard aperture show similar performance. To our knowledge, these are the shortest pulses achieved from a mode-locked Yb:YAG disk oscillator and this is the first demonstration of a Kerr-lens mode-locked thin-disk laser.     

高功率全光纤啁啾脉冲放大激光系统

采用基于非线性偏振旋转原理的光纤被动锁模激光器作为主振荡器。输出信号脉冲的重复频率为30MHz,脉冲半高全宽为265fs。信号脉冲通过全光纤啁啾脉冲激光放大系统展宽至100ps后,经过1级芯径10μm的光纤预放大器和1级芯径50μm的光纤功率放大器将脉冲平均功率放大至10W,斜率效率41.5%。输出脉冲经光栅压缩器将脉宽压缩至594fs。     

高功率全正色散锁模掺Yb3+双包层光纤飞秒激光器

以芯径为30 μm的掺Yb³⁺双包层光纤为增益介质, 利用非线性偏振旋转技术以及光栅-小孔结构组成的光谱滤波器提供有效的振幅调制, 实现了稳定的全正色散耗散孤子锁模运转. 激光器直接输出重复频率为76.6 MHz、平均功率达6.3 W的超短脉冲, 单脉冲能量可达82 nJ. 直接输出脉冲宽度为1.33 ps, 经腔外压缩后的宽度为377 fs. 通过调节光栅角度还实现了输出脉冲中心波长在1025—1078 nm范围内的调谐.     

Intense femtosecond pulse shaping using a fused-silica spatial light modulator

We present the design concept of a setup of a pulse shaper to be used for high-power femtosecond lasers. The pulse shaper is constructed from a high-damage threshold fused-silica spatial light modulator and a 4-f optical system based on the design concept to avoid optical damage. We have successfully demonstrated a pulse compression of 20 fs, 5 mJ pulses obtained from a 1 kHz repetition rate Ti:sapphire chirped pulse amplification system at an average power of 5 W.     

Microjoule-level all-polarization-maintaining femtosecond fiber source

We report on a high-power, high-energy femtosecond fiber source based on direct amplification of parabolic pulses from an environmentally stable passively mode-locked fiber oscillator in an Yb-doped single-polarization photonic crystal fiber. The special pulse shape allows for the generation of high-quality femtosecond pulses beyond nonlinearity limits. The system delivers a pulse energy of 1.2 microJ (21 W average power) at a repetition rate of 17 MHz and a pulse duration of 240 fs in a linearly polarized beam with diffraction-limited quality.     

基于预啁啾管理放大的掺镱锁模光纤激光器

报导了一种采用预啁啾管理放大技术实现的百飞秒级掺镱光纤激光器系统。该系统首先利用非线性偏振旋转技术搭建锁模种子激光,实现重复频率为82.3 MHz、压缩后脉宽接近180 fs的近线性啁啾稳定脉冲序列。种子脉冲通过预放大级和预啁啾管理放大级后获得了平均功率为12 W、压缩后脉宽低于100 fs的脉冲。经过预啁啾管理放大级的压缩后脉冲宽度明显优于种子激光的压缩后脉冲宽度。     

光子晶体光纤飞秒激光非线性放大系统的耦合动力学过程研究

构建了掺镱大模场面积单偏振光子晶体光纤飞秒激光非线性放大系统. 讨论了腔内净色散量和抽运功率对振荡级输出参数的影响和振荡级参数对放大级输出参数的影响. 在本实验条件下, 当腔内净色散量取较大负色散时, 振荡级直接输出的脉冲更宽, 且携带更少的啁啾. 当振荡级抽运4.53 W时, 选择最接近变换极限的脉冲作为种子脉冲, 放大级在60 W抽运时输出压缩后无基底的短脉冲, 宽度为45.7 fs, 平均功率28 W. 振荡级抽运功率增加到5.08 W, 放大级抽运70 W时, 获得最高输出功率34.5 W, 对应脉宽53.5 fs.