There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

The rise in output power from rare-earth-doped fiber sources over the past decade, via the use of cladding-pumped fiber architectures, has been dramatic, leading to a range of fiber-based devices with outstanding performance in terms of output power, beam quality, overall efficiency, and flexibility with regard to operating wavelength and radiation format. This success in the high-power arena is largely due to the fiber’s geometry, which provides considerable resilience to the effects of heat generation in the core, and facilitates efficient conversion from relatively low-brightness diode pump radiation to high-brightness laser output. In this paper we review the current state of the art in terms of continuous-wave and pulsed performance of ytterbium-doped fiber lasers, the current fiber gain medium of choice, and by far the most developed in terms of high-power performance. We then review the current status and challenges of extending the technology to other rare-earth dopants and associated wavelengths of operation. Throughout we identify the key factors currently limiting fiber laser performance in different operating regimes—in particular thermal management, optical nonlinearity, and damage. Finally, we speculate as to the likely developments in pump laser technology, fiber design and fabrication, architectural approaches, and functionality that lie ahead in the coming decade and the implications they have on fiber laser performance and industrial/scientific adoption.

High power fiber lasers: current status and future perspectives [Invited]

Recently there has been a remarkable synergy between the technologies of precision laser stabilization and mode-locked ultrafast lasers. This has resulted in control of the frequency spectrum produced by mode-locked lasers, which consists of a regular comb of sharp lines. Thus such a controlled mode-locked laser is a ``femtosecond optical frequency comb generator.'' For a sufficiently broad comb, it is possible to determine the absolute frequencies of all of the comb lines. This ability has revolutionized optical frequency metrology and synthesis. It has also served as the basis for the recent demonstrations of atomic clocks that utilize an optical frequency transition. In addition, it is having an impact on time-domain applications, including synthesis of a single pulse from two independent lasers. In this Colloquium, we first review the frequency-domain description of a mode-locked laser and the connection between the pulse phase and the frequency spectrum in order to provide a basis for understanding how the absolute frequencies can be determined and controlled. Using this understanding, applications in optical frequency metrology and synthesis and optical atomic clocks are discussed. This is followed by a brief overview of how the comb technology is affecting and will affect time-domain experiments.

https://www.reading.ac.uk/physicsnet/units/4/4phla/Papers/RMP03_FemtosecondCombs_Cundiff.pdf

Colloquium: Femtosecond optical frequency combs

We review some basic techniques for laser-induced adiabatic population transfer between discrete quantum states in atoms and molecules.

Laser-induced population transfer by adiabatic passage techniques.

In this paper, we summarize the fundamental properties and review the latest developments in high power fiber lasers. The review is focused primarily on the most common fiber laser configurations and the associated cladding pumping issues. Special attention is placed on pump combination techniques and the parameters that affect the brightness enhancement observed in single-mode and multimode high power fiber lasers. The review includes the major limitations imposed by fiber nonlinearities and other parasitic effects, such as optical damage, transverse modal instabilities and photodarkening. Finally, the paper summarizes the power evolution in continuous-wave and pulsed ytterbium-doped fiber lasers and their impact on industrial applications.

High Power Fiber Lasers: A Review

For powers exceeding a sharp threshold in the vicinity of several hundred watts the beam quality from some narrow bandwidth fiber amplifiers is severely degraded. We show that this can be caused by transverse thermal gradients induced by the amplification process.

Mode instability in high power fiber amplifiers

We have measured asymmetric photoelectron angular distributions for atomic rubidium. Ionization is induced by a one-photon interaction with 280 nm light and by a two-photon interaction with 560 nm light. Interference between the even- and odd-parity free-electron wave functions allows us to control the direction of maximum electron flux by varying the relative phase of the two laser fields.

Asymmetric photoelectron angular distributions from interfering photoionization processes

We measured bulk and surface dielectric breakdown thresholds of pure silica for 14 ps and 8 ns pulses of 1064 nm light. The thresholds are sharp and reproducible. For the 8 ns pulses the bulk threshold irradiance is 4.75 +/- 0.25 kW/microm2. The threshold is approximately three times higher for 14 ps pulses. For 8 ns pulses the input surface damage threshold can be made equal to the bulk threshold by applying an alumina or silica surface polish.

Bulk and surface laser damage of silica by picosecond and nanosecond pulses at 1064 nm

We report on the first demonstration of ZGP OPO based on Rotated Image Singly-Resonant Twisted RectAngle (RISTRA) cavity. For the OPO signal wave we achieved a near diffraction-limited beam at 3.4 mum with pulse energy of 10 mJ at repetition rate up to 500 Hz. As a pump source for the ZGP OPO, we utilized a 2-mum, TEM00, Ho:YLF MOPA system producing > 55 mJ energy per pulse at repetition rate range from single shot to 500 Hz.

3.4-μm ZGP RISTRA nanosecond optical parametric oscillator pumped by a 2.05-μm Ho:YLF MOPA system

We show by numerical modeling that saturation of the population inversion reduces the stimulated thermal Rayleigh gain relative to the laser gain in large mode area fiber amplifiers. We show how to exploit this effect to raise mode instability thresholds by a substantial factor. We also demonstrate that when suppression of stimulated Brillouin scattering and the population saturation effect are both taken into account, counter-pumped amplifiers have higher mode instability thresholds than co-pumped amplifiers for fully Yb3+ doped cores, and confined doping can further raise the thresholds.

Arlee V. Smith

Papers

Mode instability in high power fiber amplifiers

Asymmetric photoelectron angular distributions from interfering photoionization processes

Bulk and surface laser damage of silica by picosecond and nanosecond pulses at 1064 nm

3.4-μm ZGP RISTRA nanosecond optical parametric oscillator pumped by a 2.05-μm Ho:YLF MOPA system

Increasing mode instability thresholds of fiber amplifiers by gain saturation