We demonstrate a novel amplification regime in a counter-pumped, relatively long (2 meters), large mode area, highly Yb-doped and polarization-maintaining tapered fiber, which offers a high peak power directly from the amplifier. The main feature of this regime is that the amplifying signal propagates through a thin part of the tapered fiber without amplification and experiences an extremely high gain in the thick part of the tapered fiber, where most of the pump power is absorbed. In this regime, we have demonstrated 8 ps pulse amplification to a peak power of up to 0.76 MW, which is limited by appearance of stimulated Raman scattering. In the same regime, 28 ps chirped pulses are amplified to a peak power of 0.35 MW directly from the amplifier and then compressed with 70% efficiency to 315 ± 10 fs, corresponding to an estimated peak power of 22 MW.

Sub-MW peak power diffraction-limited chirped-pulse monolithic Yb-doped tapered fiber amplifier

We demonstrated a passively Q-switched Yb-doped fiber laser in an all-fiber configuration that used a piece of a Yb-doped fiber with a smaller core than the gain fiber as a saturable absorber. The laser generated stable output pulses at 1064 nm with a narrow line width of less than 0.2 nm. The Q-switched pulses have a pulse width of 140 ns and pulse energy of 141 $\mu\hbox{J}$ at a repetition rate of 100 kHz. The peak power of $\sim$ 1 kW and high slope efficiency of 51% were obtained. The repetition rate of this laser can be varied from a few kHz to 100 kHz with a potential of reaching up to 250 kHz. Stimulated Raman scattering was observed, though at 70 dB below the laser emission. The estimated stimulated Raman threshold is 6.2 kW, which allows this laser to further scale up the power. Because of its high peak power and adequate average power, the laser can be used as a stand-alone module for some applications in material processing. It can be also used as a seed laser for further power amplification.

Kilowatt Peak Power Pulses From a Passively Q-Switched Yb-Doped Fiber Laser With a Smaller-Core Yb-Doped Fiber as a Saturable Absorber

In this work, a compact fiber chirped pulse amplification system exploiting a tandem of a chirped fiber Bragg grating stretcher and a chirped volume Bragg grating compressor with matched chromatic dispersion is presented. Chirped pulses of 230 ps duration were amplified in a Yb-doped fiber amplifier and re-compressed to 208 fs duration with good fidelity. The compressed pulse duration was fine-tuned by temperature gradient along the fiber Bragg grating stretcher.

Compact fiber CPA system based on a CFBG stretcher and CVBG compressor with matched dispersion profile.

Parabolic pulses with linear self-phase-modulation-induced frequency chirp are attractive in ultrafast laser fiber amplification system for the functionality of nonlinearities suppression. In this paper, we present an effective way of parabolic pulse evolution by passive spectral amplitude shaping with a pair of chirped fiber Bragg gratings (CFBG). By this approach, a high-energy high-peak-power Yb-doped fiber chirped pulse amplification (CPA) system is demonstrated. The oscillator is a dispersion-managed passively mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser with a broadband Gaussian-shaped spectrum which is evolved to parabola in a following preamplifier with pre-chirping management by a CFBG compressor. The pulses are then stretched with a CFBG stretcher, based on frequency-to-time mapping, the temporal profiles of the pulses show an identical parabolic envelope to the spectrum. The shaped pulses are further amplified with three stages of all-fiber amplifiers and compressed by a grating-pair compressor. The pulse duration is compressed to 172 fs with a pulse energy of 27 µJ. The central pulse encompasses 72% of total pulse energy, corresponding to a pulse peak power of 113 MW. No obvious pulse degeneration is noticed at nonlinearity accumulation B-integral as high as 12 rad. This configuration shows a significant potential for nonlinearity tolerance in high-energy operation compared with conventional CPA system.

172-fs, 27-µJ, Yb-doped all-fiber-integrated chirped pulse amplification system based on parabolic evolution by passive spectral amplitude shaping

Optical wave packets that are localized in space and time, but nevertheless overcome diffraction and travel rigidly in free space, are a long sought-after field structure with applications ranging from microscopy and remote sensing, to nonlinear and quantum optics. However, synthesizing such wave packets requires introducing non-differentiable angular dispersion with high spectral precision in two transverse dimensions, a capability that has eluded optics to date. Here, we describe an experimental strategy capable of sculpting the spatio-temporal spectrum of a generic pulsed beam by introducing arbitrary radial chirp via two-dimensional conformal coordinate transformations of the spectrally resolved field. This procedure yields propagation-invariant `space-time' wave packets localized in all dimensions, with tunable group velocity in the range from $0.7c$ to $1.8c$ in free space, and endowed with prescribed orbital angular momentum. By providing unprecedented flexibility in sculpting the three-dimensional structure of pulsed optical fields, our experimental strategy promises to be a versatile platform for the emerging enterprise of space-time optics.

Space-time wave packets localized in all dimensions

We report a high-power all-fiber-integrated femtosecond chirped pulse amplification system operating at 1064 nm, which consists of a dispersive wave source, a fiber stretcher, a series of ytterbium-doped amplifiers and a chirped volume Bragg grating (CVBG) compressor. The dispersive wave is generated by an erbium-doped mode-locked fiber laser with frequency shifted to the 1 μm region in a highly nonlinear fiber. With three stages of ytterbium-doped amplification, the average output power is scaled up to 125 W. Through CVBG, the pulse duration is compressed from 525 ps to 566 fs, the average output power of 107 W with a high compression efficiency of 86% is achieved, and the measured repetition rate is 17.57 MHz, corresponding to the peak power of 10.8 MW.

High-power all-fiber femtosecond chirped pulse amplification based on dispersive wave and chirped-volume Bragg grating

We demonstrate a stable passively Q-switched and gain-switched Yb-doped all-fiber laser cladding-pumped by a continuous fiber-coupled 976 nm laser diode. By use of an all-fiber dual-cavity, the efficient elements of the laser mainly include the fiber Bragg gratings and rare-earth doped fiber, allowing the oscillator to be integrated in a compact size with reliable and stable output. In this scheme, an efficient laser output with 45 ns pulse width, 62 μJ pulse energy, and 1.4 kW peak power operating at 1081 nm was obtained. To the best of our knowledge, this is the minimum pulse width in this similar kind of all-fiber configuration at present. Sequential nanosecond pulses were obtained at the repetition rate of several to tens of kHz with the variation of the diode pumping power. Effects of laser parameters such as pump power, cavity length, external-cavity wavelength, and FBG reflectivity on laser performance were also presented and discussed.

Stable passively Q-switched and gain-switched Yb-doped all-fiber laser based on a dual-cavity with fiber Bragg gratings.

We demonstrate a high-power, high signal-to-noise ratio single-frequency Brillouin all-fiber laser with high slope efficiency at 1 μm wavelength. The laser is pumped by an amplified single-longitudinal-mode distributed Bragg reflector fiber laser with a linewidth of 33 kHz. By optimizing the length of the Brillouin ring cavity to 10 m, stable single-frequency Brillouin fiber laser is obtained with 3 kHz linewidth owing to the linewidth narrowing effect. At the launched pump power of 2.15 W, the Brillouin fiber laser generates maximum output power of 1.4 W with a slope efficiency of 79% and the optical signal-to-noise ratio of 77 dB.

High-power, high signal-to-noise ratio single-frequency 1 μm Brillouin all-fiber laser.

We report on an ultraviolet-enhanced supercontinuum generation in a uniform photonic crystal fiber pumped by a giant-chirped mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser. We find theoretically and experimentally that the initial pluses with giant chirp leads more initial energy transferred to the dispersive waves in visible and ultraviolet wavelength. An extremely wide optical spectrum spanning from 370 nm to beyond 2400 nm with a broad 3 dB spectral bandwidth of 367 nm (from 431 nm to 798 nm) is obtained. Over 36% (350 mW) of the total output power locates in the visible and ultraviolet regime between 370 nm and 850 nm with a maximum spectral power density of 1.6 mW/nm at 550 nm.

Ultraviolet-enhanced supercontinuum generation in uniform photonic crystal fiber pumped by a giant-chirped fiber laser

A high pulse energy Yb-doped all-fiber dual-cavity laser oscillator is reported, based on the pulse generation mechanism of passive $Q$ -switch with large core fiber saturable absorber. Sequential pulses with 49-ns pulse duration and 21-W average power operating at 1080 nm can be achieved in the scheme using the Yb-doped fiber with the core-diameter of 10 $\mu \text{m}$ . The repetition rate varies from $\sim 1$ to 113.6 kHz, while the incident pump power increases. The monolithic all-fiber dual-cavity oscillator can achieve the highest pulse energy of $187~\mu \text{J}$ . Moreover, using the all-fiber scheme with the core-diameter of uniform 20 $\mu \text{m}$ , the single-pulse energy can be further scaled up to 484 $\mu \text{J}$ , which is directly the output from the all-fiber oscillator without additional amplifiers.

Dongchen Jin

Papers

High-power all-fiber femtosecond chirped pulse amplification based on dispersive wave and chirped-volume Bragg grating

Stable passively Q-switched and gain-switched Yb-doped all-fiber laser based on a dual-cavity with fiber Bragg gratings.

High-power, high signal-to-noise ratio single-frequency 1 μm Brillouin all-fiber laser.

Ultraviolet-enhanced supercontinuum generation in uniform photonic crystal fiber pumped by a giant-chirped fiber laser

Nanosecond Yb-Doped Monolithic Dual-Cavity Laser Oscillator With Large Core Fiber