High-power 100-fs pulse generation by frequency doubling of an erbium ytterbium-fiber master oscillator power amplifier

Frequency doubling of an erbium-ytterbium-fiber master-oscillator-power-amplifier system is demonstrated. Simultaneous amplification and pulse compression in multimode erbium-ytterbium-doped fibers produces high-quality near-diffraction and near-bandwidth-limited 100-fs pulses at a wavelength of 1.62microm with an average power of 230 mW at a repetition rate of 52 MHz. Periodically poled LiNbO(3) allows for frequency doubling with a conversion efficiency of 51%, producing near-bandwidth-limited 105-fs pulses with an average power of 117 mW and a pulse energy of 2.3 nJ at a wavelength of 810 nm.     

Ultrafast pulse sources based on multi-mode optical fibers

Ultrafast pulse sources based on multi-mode optical fibers are discussed. High-power passively mode-locked fiber lasers based on multi-mode rare-earth-doped optical fibers greatly exceed the power limitations of single-mode oscillators. Ultrafast multi-mode fiber amplifiers operating in conjunction with multi-mode oscillators provide even higher power levels, where nonlinear propagation effects enable pulse compression to below 100 fs. Multi-mode fiber oscillators can be combined with single-mode Raman-shifting fibers to produce widely wavelength-tunable sources of femtosecond pulses. Further amplification in Yb fibers allows for the generation of sub-100-fs pulses with W-level average powers.     

Demonstration of fiber-laser-produced plasma source and application to efficient extreme UV light generation

Efficient generation of extreme UV (EUV) light at lambda = 13.5 nm from a bulk Sn target has been demonstrated by using a fiber laser. The conversion efficiency from the 1064 nm IR to the EUV was measured to be around 0.9% into 2pi steradians within a 2% bandwidth. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time an all-fiber system was used to generate EUV or soft x rays.     

Pulse fidelity control in a 20-μJ sub-200-fs monolithic Yb-fiber amplifier

We discuss nonlinearity management versus energy scalability and compressibility in a three-stage monolithic 100-kHz repetition rate Yb-fiber amplifier designed as a driver source for the generation and tunable parametric amplification of a carrier-envelope phase stable white-light supercontinuum.     

High-power single-polarization and single-transverse-mode fiber laser with an all-fiber cavity and fiber-grating stabilized spectrum

Conventionally, large-mode-area (LMA) fiber lasers use free-space polarizing components to achieve linear polarization output. External components, however, significantly limit laser robustness and power scalability. We demonstrate, to the best of our knowledge, the first high-power all-fiber cavity single-polarization single-transverse-mode LMA fiber laser, without the use of free-space polarizing components. This has been achieved by using tightly coiled high-birefringence 20 microm core LMA fiber. The lasing spectrum at 1085 nm has been stabilized by a fiber grating, spliced at one end of a LMA fiber. Up to 405 W of single-polarization output with a polarization extinction of >19 dB with a narrow spectrum (1.9 nm FWHM) and in a single-transverse mode (M2 < 1.1) has been demonstrated. The simplicity of a monolithic-cavity approach is highly beneficial for a number of applications, including the use of a fiber laser for nonlinear wavelength conversion and for coherent and spectral beam combining.     

Engineerable femtosecond pulse shaping by second-harmonic generation with Fourier synthetic quasi-phase-matching gratings

We describe a pulse-shaping technique that uses second-harmonic generation with Fourier synthetic quasi-phase-matching gratings. We demonstrate both amplitude and phase tailoring by generating a picosecond squarelike pulse as well as trains of femtosecond pulses with a terahertz-range repetition rate from either a compressed or a chirped pump pulse.     

Chirped-pulse-amplification circuits for fiber amplifiers, based on chirped-period quasi-phase-matching gratings

A new type of compact chirped-pulse-amplification circuit for high-power amplification of femtosecond pulses in an optical fiber is demonstrated. This circuit is based on a novel pulse compressor, chirped-period quasi-phase-matching gratings in electric-field-poled lithium niobate. The main advantages of this circuit are simplicity, the small number of components, compactness, and wavelength conversion of Er-doped fiber output to the technologically important 780-nm wavelength region.     

Dependence of parabolic pulse amplification on stimulated Raman scattering and gain bandwidth

An analytical model has been developed and verified by numerical simulations to determine limits induced by stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) on parabolic pulse evolution in high-power, high-energy Yb-fiber amplifiers. Our results show that the maximum achievable parabolic pulse energies are limited by SRS at low amplifier gains and by the finite gain bandwidth at high gains. Therefore, an optimum gain value exists that maximizes the achievable output pulse energy.     

High-energy and high-peak-power nanosecond pulse generation with beam quality control in 200-microm core highly multimode Yb-doped fiber amplifiers

We explored high-energy and high-peak-power pulse generation in large-core multimode fiber amplifiers, achieving what is to our knowledge the highest reported energies, up to 82 mJ for 500-ns pulses, 27 mJ for 50-ns pulses, and 2.4-MW peak power for 4-ns pulses at 1064 nm, using 200-microm-diameter and 0.062-N.A. core Yb-doped double-clad fiber amplifiers. The highly multimode nature of the fiber core was mitigated by use of a coiling-induced mode-filtering effect to yield a significant improvement in output-beam quality from M2 = 25 from an uncoiled fiber to M2 = 6.5 from a properly coiled fiber, with the corresponding reduction in number of propagating transverse modes from > or = 200 to < or = 20.     

Picosecond optoelectronic characterization of diode lasers

New optoelectronic techniques for measuring semiconductor laser turn-on delay times and jitter with a picosecond temporal resolution are proposed and were employed for both conventional, homogeneous cavity and ion-bombarded picosecond diode laser characterization. Distinct differences in the characteristics of those lasers were found.