Influences of finite gain bandwidth on pulse propagation in parabolic fiber amplifiers with distributed gain profiles

The evolutions of the pulses propagating in decreasing and increasing gain distributed fiber amplifiers with finite gain bandwidths are investigated by simulations with the nonlinear Schr¨odinger equation. The results show that the parabolic pulse propagations in both the decreasing and the increasing gain amplifiers are restricted by the finite gain bandwidth. For a given input pulse, by choosing a small initial gain coefficient and gain variation rate, the whole gain for the pulse amplification limited by the gain bandwidth may be higher, which is helpful for the enhancement of the output linearly chirped pulse energy. Compared to the decreasing gain distributed fiber amplifier, the increasing gain distributed amplifier may be more conducive to suppress the pulse spectral broadening and increase the critical amplifier length for achieving a larger output linearly chirped pulse energy.     

Laser diode array side-pumped medium-aperture Nd:glass square rod amplifier

A laser diode array side-pumped Nd:glass square rod amplifier of the dimensions 12 mm × 12 mm is designed.The fluorescence is evenly distributed in the Nd:glass amplifier.When the pump power is 66.32 kW,the small signal gain increases by 3.23 times.Under the condition of a 1 Hz repetition frequency,50 mJ of injected seedlight energy,and a 10 mm × 10 mm aperture,the output energy of the laser beam can reach 1.62 J during the four-pass amplification.The output energy stability of the laser pulse is 2.94%(RMS),and the square pulse distortion is smaller than 2.The energy amplification of the injected laser beam from millijoules to joules is realized.     

Theory of noise in a kilo-Hz cascaded high-energy Yb-doped nanosecond pulsed fiber amplifier

A theoretical analysis of noise in a high-power cascaded fiber amplifier is presented. Unlike the noise theory in low power communication, the noise of a high power system is redefined as the leaked output energy between pulses with coherent beat noise uncounted. This definition is more appropriate for high power usage in which the pulse energy receives more attention than the pulse shape integrity. Then the low power pre-amplifying stages are considered as linear amplification and analyzed by linear theory. In the high-power amplification stages, the inversion is assumed to recover linearly in the time interval between pulses. The time shape of the output pulse is different from that of the input signal because of different gains at the front and back ends of the pulse. Then, a criterion is provided to distinguish the nonlinear and linear amplifications based on the signal-to-noise ratio （SNR） analysis. Then, an experiment that shows that the output SNR actually drops off in nonlinear amplification is performed. The change in the noise factor can be well evaluated by pulse shape distortion.     

Hybrid femtosecond laser system based on a Yb:KGW regenerative amplifier for N_P polarization

We report a hybrid femtosecond laser system based on a femtosecond Yb-doped fiber laser and a Yb-doped potassium gadolinium tungstate(Yb:KGW) regenerative amplifier. To match the central wavelength of the seed source, a Yb:KGW crystal is used in the regenerative amplifier for N_p polarization. We study and optimize the dynamics of nonlinear amplification to alleviate the gain narrowing effect. With optimization, the system can output 270 fs pulses with 21 μJ pulse energy at a 60 kHz repetition rate.     

Intermediate Self-similar Solutions of the Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation with an Arbitrary Longitudinal Gain Profile

We study pulse propagation in a normal-dispersion optical fibre amplifier with an arbitrary longitudinal gain profile by self-similarity techniques. We show the functional form of the development of low-amplitude wings on the parabolic pulse, which are associated with the evolution of an arbitrary input pulse to the asymptotic parabolic pulse solution. It is found that for the increasing gain the amplifier output corresponding to the input Gaussian pulse converges to the asymptotic parabolic pulse solution more quickly than the output obtained with the input hyperbolic secant pulse, whereas for the decreasing gain the input pulse profiles have nearly no effect on the speed of convergence to the parabolic pulse solution. These theoretical results are confirmed by numerical simulations.     

Effective SNR improvement using a high-power pulsed pump in an ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier

A high-power pulsed pump method is proposed to obtain a high-energy output with an improved signal- to-noise ratio （SNR） during pulse amplification. Based on numerical analysis, the ytterbium-doped fiber amplifiers are compared under different pumping conditions. At the same signal gain, the output using the high-power pulsed pump shows great SNR improvement and reduced output signal distortion, compared with a continuous-wave pump and a low-power pulsed pump. By adjusting the pump parameters, the amplifier can achieve the optimal output SNR without sacrificing the signal gain. We believe that the high-power pulsed pump scheme is very suitable for the high-energy nanosecond pulse amplification, which has a high SNR requirement.     

A compact Tirsapphire femtosecond pulse amplifier without stretcher at high repetition rate

We report a simple approach to amplify Ti:sapphire femtosecond pulses to moderate energy levels by a chirped regenerative amplifier. The seed pulses are broaden naturally because of the material dispersion of system components in regenerative cavity. The off-focusing Ti:sapphire crystal avoids effectively the optical damage. It sustains amplification over a wavelength range from 775 nm to more than 810 nm with a birefringent filter and an oscillation bandwidth of 7.7 nm, and produces 2.1 ps chirped output pulse energy of 100 uJ at 1.1-mJ pumping energy. This system shows good performances in stability and efficiency with the benefits of two thin-film polarizers and TEMoo mode pumping laser.     

A 526 mJ Subnanosecond Pulsed Hybrid-Pumped Nd:YAG Laser

A hybrid-pumped Nd:YAG pulse laser with a double-pass two-rod configuration is presented. The focal length of offset lens is particularly studied to compensate for the thermal lens effect and depolarization. For input pulse energy of 141μJ with pulse duration of 754 ps, the pulse laser system delivers 526 mJ pulse energy and 728 ps pulse width output at 10 Hz with pulse profile shape preservation. The energy stability of the laser pulse is less than 3%, and the beam quality factor M~2 is less than 2.26.     

Theoretical and experimental research on cryogenic Yb:YAG regenerative amplifier

Based on the theory of quasi-three-level rate equations modified by amplified spontaneous emission,the stored energy density and the small signal gain of the cryogenic Yb:YAG regenerative amplifier for a given geometry for pulsed pumping in three dimensions are theoretically studied using the Monte Carlo simulation.The present model provides a straightforward procedure to design the Yb:YAG parameters and the optical coupling system for optimization when running at cryogenic temperature.A fiber-coupled laser diode end-pumped cryogenic Yb:YAG regenerative amplifier running at 1 030 nm is demonstrated with a maximum output energy 10.2 mJ at a repetition rate of 10 Hz.A very good agreement between the experiments and the theoretical model is achieved.     

Millijoule pulse energy picosecond fiber chirped-pulse amplification system

The efficient generation of a 1.17-mJ laser pulse with 360 ps duration using an ytterbium (Yb)-doped fiber amplifier chain seeded by a homemade mode-locked fiber laser is demonstrated experimentally.A specially designed figure-of-eight fiber laser acts as the seed source of a chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) system and generates mode-locked pulses with hundreds of picosecond widths.Two kinds of large-mode-area (LMA) double-clad Yb-doped fibers are employed to construct the pre-amplifier and main amplifier.All of the adopted instruments help avoid severe nonlinearity in fibers to raise sub-nanosecond pulse energy with acceptable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).The output spectrum of this fiber-based CPA system shows that amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) is suppressed to better than 30 dB,and the onset of stimulated Raman scattering is excluded.     

Highly Efficient and Stable Ring Regenerative Amplifier for Chirped-Pulse Amplification at Repetition Rate 1 kHz

A highly efficient and stable ring-cavity regenerative amplifier for chirped-pulse amplification at a 1 kHz repetition rate, with slope efficiency up to 40% and output pulse-to-pulse energy-jitter less than 1.25%, is demonstrated. The pulse energy as high as 2.4mJ is obtained.     

Modeling and optimizing of low-repetition-rate high-energy pulse amplification in high-concentration erbium-doped fiber amplifiers

Starting from the modeling of isolated ions and ion-pairs, a closed form rate and power evolution equations for pulse amplification in high-concentration erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) are constructed. According to the equations, the effects of ion-pairs on the performance of a high-concentration EDFA in steady state including upper-state population, ASE powers without input signal are analyzed numerically. Furthermore, the effects of ion-pairs on the dynamic characteristics of low-repetition-rate pulse amplification in the EDFA including the storied energy, output pulse energy and evolution of pulse waveform distortion are systematically studied by using the finite-difference method. The results show that the presence of the ion-pairs deteriorates amplifier performance, such as the upper-state population, ASE power, storied energy, output pulse energy, and saturated gain, etc. For the high-concentration EDFA, the optimum fiber length should be modified to achieve a better performance. The relations between the evolution of pulse waveform distortion or output pulse energy and the input pulse peak power are also discussed. The results can provide important guide for the design and optimization of the low-repetition-rate pulse amplification in high-concentration EDFAs.     

13-W picosecond Nd:GdVO4 regenerative amplifier with 200-kHz repetition rate

We report a diode-pumped picosecond Nd:GdVO₄ regenerative amplifier system designed for micro-machining applications. Nd:GdVO₄ was chosen as gain material because it offers – in comparison to the commonly used Nd:YVO₄ – improved thermal properties and a larger gain bandwidth. At the maximum repetition rate of 200 kHz, the system generated 6.8-ps-long pulses with a pulse energy of 65 μJ, which corresponds to an average output power of 13 W. At 100 kHz, the pulse energy increased to 123 μJ, whereas the average power of 12.3 W remained almost identical. The broadening of the pulses due to gain narrowing was investigated in dependence on the number of cavity round trips and on the repetition rate. At 200 kHz, the injected 5.3-ps-long pulses broadened slightly to about 6.8 ps.     

A Compact All-Solid-State 630-ps 9.43-kHz High Power Nd：YAG/Nd：YVO4 Hybrid Laser System

We present a simple and compact design for an all-solid-state laser amplifier system which can output 9.43-kHz 630-ps, 3.5-W pulse trains under 20 W absorbed pumping power. The excellent matching between the repetition of its seed source and the fluorescence lifetime of the amplifying medium makes it quiet efficient for the four-pass amplifier to be pumped in cw mode without need of any synchronization device between the oscillator and the amplifier. The entire setup just covers an area of 55 × 25 cm^2. The output average power fluctuation is less than ±1.5% within 10min and 3% within 6h.     

Efficient generation of 200 mJ nanosecond pulses at 100 Hz repetition rate from a cryogenic cooled Yb:YAG MOPA system

A diode-pumped Master Oscillator Power Amplifier (MOPA) laser system based on cryogenic cooled Yb:YAG has been designed, developed and its output performance characterised. The laser system consists of a fibre oscillator, an active mirror regenerative amplifier and a four pass main amplifier. 2.4 mJ, 10 ns, 100 Hz seed pulses from the fibre oscillator/regenerative amplifier arrangement were amplified up to pulse energies of over 200 mJ by using the four pass main amplifier arrangement. As a further study we have obtained an increased slope efficiency of 40% and an optical-to-optical efficiency of 30% using a pinhole vacuum spatial filter/image relay for laser mode control. With 1.8 mJ input seed pulses, output pulse energies of around 150 mJ were achieved.     

High gain amplification of femtosecond pulses with low amplified spontaneous emission in a multipass dye cell

We present a multipass femtosecond amplifier pumped by a Nd-YAG laser where the gain medium is given by a variable length dye cell. This system allows amplification factors up to 5 · 10⁶ and output pulse energies of 150 J, while restricting the contribution of amplified spontaneous emission to 0.5% of the total output energy, without using any saturable absorber stage. A detailed study of the output pulsewidth as a function of the duration of the input chirped pulse is also presented.     

Transient gain enhancement for a train of picosecond pulses in a large-aperture KrF laser amplifier

The heavily depleted steady-state gain in a large-aperture amplifier can be transiently enhanced by temporally suppressing the intra-cavity amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). In our previous experiments of amplifying two 10-ps pulses in a 29-cm-diameter KrF amplifier, we showed that output fluences of three times the saturation energy density E_sat were obtained at a pulse separation of 1.7 ns for full-filling beams, whereas it took 4 ns for 5-cm-diameter beams. Our recently developed time-dependent ASE code almost reproduced this observed quick gain recovery. In this paper, we report the experimental results of amplifying six 10-ps pulses in series to the saturation level in the large-aperture amplifier. The quick gain recovery was observed also for the pulse train. Short-pulse outputs of 3E_sat were obtained at a reduced pulse separation of only 1.5 ns. Received: 12 March 1999 / Published online: 19 May 1999     

An Ultra-Broadband Spatially Dispersed Regenerative Amplifier Free from Spatial Chirp

An ultra-broadband Ti：sapphire regenerative amplifier based on spatially dispersed amplification is demonstrated experimentally. Departing from previous reports, a new design of the cavity gets the amplified pulse free from spatial chirp. Utilizing this new regenerative amplifier, chirped pulses with bandwidth （FWHM） of about 80 nm are obtained, and the bandwidth is limited only by that of the incident seed pulses.     

Generation of 17-TW 23-fs Pulses with a Two-Stage Ti：Sapphire Amplifier at Repetition Rate 10 Hz

We have developed a two-stage Ti：sapphire amplifier system which can produce 17- TW/23-fs pulses at a repetition rate 10Hz. A birefringent plate is used in the regenerative amplifier to alleviate gain narrowing, while an all- reflective cylindrical-mirror-based pulse stretcher and an acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter （AOPDF） are used to compensate for the higher order dispersion of the system.     

Calculation of the Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Q-switched Yb^3＋：YAG Laser with an Unstable Cavity and a Super-Gaussian Mirror

A numerical simulation used to compute the spatio-temporal dynamics of pulse formation of diode-pumped Q- switched Yb： YA G laser is carried out. The model takes the laser amplification and gain saturation, the properties of the laser cavity, and the diffractive effects of the laser disc into account. The numerical calculation is performed for a confocal positive-branch unstable resonator with a super Gaussian coupling mirror. The simulation results show that the laser pulse starts from a Gaussian intensity distribution and becomes rapidly non-Gaussian. The corresponding beam quality M^2 factor is seen to vary approximately from 1.5 at the beginning of the formation of pulse to more than 10 in the tail of the pulse, with a value of 11.6 at the peak of the pulse.