We theoretically and experimentally show coherent pulse stacking (CPS) can accommodate tens-of-fs pulse durations and has negligible stacking fidelity degradation with increased pulse bandwidth. Simulations prove large number of tens-of-fs pulses can be stacked with high pre-pulse contrast. In an experiment, nine spectrally broadened and fiber amplified pulses are stacked using four cascaded cavities. CPS of pulses with different spectral bandwidths, up to 75 nm base-to-base (<50 fs transform-limited duration), are tested, showing negligible stacking degradation due to increased bandwidth. This work provides a path towards high energy, tens-of-fs pulses from ultrafast fiber lasers.
We report development of 85µm core Yb-doped and Ge-doped chirally-coupled-core (CCC) fibers, and their integration via fusion-splicing into an all-fiber optical amplifier system. This system, consisting of a CCC fiber amplifier and a 6+1 fusion-spliced signal-pump-combiner with a passive CCC fiber feed-through produces robust single mode output (diffraction-limited) in a counter-pumped configuration with passive-fiber leads as short as ~30cm. The Yb-doped 85µm core CCC fiber amplifiers had produced ~10mJ energy pulses at close to ~100W of average power. This achieved performance and monolithic all-fiber integration are required for compact and robust coherently-combined laser array drivers of laser plasma accelerators.
KEYWORDS: Fiber amplifiers, Ultrafast phenomena, Optical filters, Amplifiers, Linear polarizers, Linear filtering, Electronic filtering, Control systems
We report demonstration of a new spectrally-controllable device, based on a sequence of linear polarizers and birefringent plates, which allows to accurately and adjustably tailor its spectral filtering properties for achieving complete gain-narrowing compensation over ~30nm of signal bandwidth in an Yb-doped fiber system with the total gain reaching 150dB. The experimental demonstration was performed in a regenerative Yb-fiber amplifier system with controllable number of passes, allowing to characterize both signal spectral-narrowing, and as well as spectral compensation at varying levels of achieved total gain. This result opens a pathway towards 100fs duration multi-mJ pulses from fiber CPSA systems.
10mJ energy extraction from a single Yb-doped 85µm core CCC fiber has been achieved using coherent pulse stacking amplification (CPSA) technique. This has been achieved by amplifying a burst of 81 stretched pulses with modulated amplitudes and phases, in a Yb-doped fiber CPA system where it is amplified to 10mJ with low nonlinearity, and coherently stacked into a single pulse with 4+4 cascading GTI cavities. The burst is generated by sending femtosecond pulses from a 1GHz repetition rate mode-locked fiber oscillator into a pair of amplitude and phase electro-optic modulators, where the burst is carved out and pre-shaped to compensate for strong saturation effect in fiber CPA system and to provide correct relative phases for coherent pulse stacking. After each pulse is stretched to approximately 1-ns, the burst is amplified through several cascading fiber amplifiers and down-counted to 1kHz repetition rate, and it extracts >90% stored energy from the last Yb-doped 85µm core CCC fiber. This multi-mJ burst of 81 pulses is then coherently stacked into a single pulse in 4+4 multiplexed GTI cavities consisting of 4 sets of 1ns-roundtrip cavities followed by 4 sets of 9-ns roundtrip cavities. After stacking, the stretched pulse is compressed to <540fs using diffraction-grating pulse compressor. CPSA enables generation of multi-mJ femtosecond pulses with one fiber amplifier channel.
We report on the performance of a standard Yb-doped DC-LMA fiber and compare it to a similar core-size chirally-coupled core (3C®) fiber in a co-pumped fiber amplifier configuration. We used Yb-doped 20/400/0.064 DC LMA fiber for the power amplifier and achieved ~2.4 kW of signal power at 2.79 kW of absorbed pump power. However, we observed an onset of TMI at ~2.2 kW. The spectral bandwidth of this amplifier was 20 GHz and there was no sign of SBS at 2.4 kW of output power. We then used an Yb-doped 21.9/400/0.059 DC 3C fiber with a coiling diameter of ~30 cm to test the efficacy of HOM suppression in this fiber with respect to improving TMI threshold. We achieved 2.6 kW of output power (pump combiner limited) without TMI. Further power-scaling experiments are underway and we will report on the latest findings. However, it is clear from these results that 3C fiber has a better HOM suppression capability compared to 10-cm diameter coiled DC-LMA fiber. Even a 30-cm coiled 3C fiber shows no sign of TMI at 2.6 kW; while, a slightly smaller diameter and tightly coiled 10-cm diameter LMA fiber amplifier shows signs of TMI ~ 2.2 kW. We also measured Brillouin shift, gain bandwidth and gain coefficient and they were found to be ~15.3 GHz, ~83 MHz and 0.47 to 0.7 ×10-11 m/W respectively compared to reported values of 16.1 GHz, ~64 MHz and 5 ×10-11 m/W. This significantly lower Brillouin gain and slightly larger gain bandwidth leads to eight times higher SBS threshold for amplifiers using nLIGHT fiber with near single-frequency seed compared to literature values. This is a distinct advantage which will enable optimization of both the LMA and 3C fiber geometry to achieve higher TMI threshold in the future.
We report multi-mJ energy (>5mJ) extraction from femtosecond-pulse Yb-doped fiber CPA using coherent pulse stacking amplification (CPSA) technique. This high energy extraction has been enabled by amplifying 10’s of nanosecond long pulse sequence, and by using 85-µm core Yb-doped CCC fiber based power amplification stage. The CPSA system consists of 1-GHz repetition rate mode-locked fiber oscillator, followed by a pair of fast phase and amplitude electro-optic modulators, a diffraction-grating based pulse stretcher, a fiber amplifier chain, a GTI-cavity based pulse stacker, and a diffraction grating pulse compressor. Electro-optic modulators are used to carve out from the 1-GHz mode-locked pulse train an amplitude and phase modulated pulse burst, which after stretching and amplification, becomes equal-amplitude pulse burst consisting of 27 stretched pulses, each approximately 1-ns long. Initial pulse-burst shaping accounts for the strong amplifier saturation effects, so that it is compensated at the power amplifier output. This 27-pulse burst is then coherently stacked into a single pulse using a multiplexed sequence of 5 GTI cavities. The compact-footprint 4+1 multiplexed pulse stacker consists of 4 cavities having rountrip of 1 ns, and one Herriott-cell folded cavity - with 9ns roundtrip. After stacking, stretched pulses are compressed down to the bandwidth-limited ~300 fs duration using a standard diffraction-grating pulse compressor.
3C fiber technology advances the performance frontier of practical, high-pulse-energy fiber lasers by providing very large core fibers with the handling and packaging benefits associated with single mode fibers. First-generation fibers demonstrate scaling to > 240 W average power coincident with 100-kW peak power in 1-mJ, 10-ns pulses while maintaining single-mode beam quality, polarized output, and efficiencies > 70%. Peak powers over 0.5 MW with negligible spectral distortion can be achieved with sub ns, near-transform-limited pulses. In-development second-generation 3C Yb-fiber based on core sizes around 55 μm1 have produced >8 mJ, 13 ns pulses with peak powers exceeding 600 kW.
A time-dependent analytical model is rigorously derived which shows that the thermally induced modal instability in high power rare-earth doped fiber amplifiers is fundamentally a two-wave mixing between fundamental and higher-order modes through a thermally-induced grating imprinted by beating between these modes. We show that previously postulated movement of this grating to phase-match the coupling between the modes naturally occurs due to a finite thermal-response time of a fiber. This theory is consistent with experimental observations in that it accurately predicts the onset-like threshold and temporal instabilities in the kilohertz-frequency range.
3C (Chirally-Coupled Core) optical fiber establishes a technological platform for high brightness, power scalable lasers
with an engineerable fiber geometry that enables robustly single-mode performance of large core diameter fibers. Here
we report the demonstration of robust polarization preserving performance of 35 μm core 3C fiber for short pulse
systems. A polarization extinction ratio (PER) of ~ 20 dB is stably maintained with ambient temperatures varying over a
50°C range from a Yb-doped double clad 3C fiber amplifier. We also demonstrate that this high-PER polarization
output is insensitive to temperature gradients and mechanical perturbations in the 3C fiber amplifier. The ability to
deliver high peak power pulses at high average powers while maintaining exceptional beam quality and a stable
polarization state in an easily integrated format makes 3C fiber laser systems extremely attractive for harmonic
generation to visible and UV wavelengths.
We report the energy scaling of mode-locked fiber lasers using a large-mode area chirally-coupled core fiber. This is a
demonstration of the scaling of ultrafast fiber oscillators to large cores in an all-solid glass package that holds the lowest
order fiber mode while maintaining compatibility with fiber fusion technology. An all-normal dispersion cavity design
yields pulse energies above 40 nJ that dechirp to durations below 200 fs. Using lower net dispersion, pulses dechirping
close to 100 fs are obtained with pump limited energies. Effectively single-mode operation is confirmed by beam quality
as well as spectral interference measurements.
In this paper we present advances made in the development and fabrication of highly efficient, large-mode area fibers for eye-safe wavelengths (1.55 μm, 2.0 μm). LMA Er/Yb co-doped and Tm doped fibers have been successfully fabricated, with 25 μm core and 250 to 300 μm clad diameters, that are suitable for nanosecond pulsed amplification in LIDAR applications as well as high power CW amplification. Manufacturing challenges for these novel fibers are discussed. Measured and modeled data, for both types of fibers, are presented. The development of non-PM and PM-LMA fibers for eye-safe applications is expected to spur rapid progress in power scaling at these wavelengths, similar to that witnessed by the industry at 1.06 μm.
We demonstrate a single transverse mode Yb-doped fiber laser that can be operated in a wide range of pulse lengths and repetition rates.
The pulsed 1064nm beam of a single mode diode laser is amplified by a three stage fiber amplifier. It consists of two stages that incorporate single-mode fibers and a third stage using LMA fiber. A monolithic setup is achieved by an adiabatic taper between the second and the third stage exciting only the fundamental mode in the LMA fiber. Variable pulse regimes were investigated in the range from 10kHz to 1MHz and CW. A maximum output energy of 0.5mJ and maximum peak power of 66kW were measured. Pulse trains consisting of four pulses with pulse spacing of 200, 500 and 1000ns and a pulse length of 10ns were also evaluated. The repetition rate of the train was set to 1kHz.
We report our recent progress in designing and manufacturing new, completely monolithic, linearly polarized, continuous wave (CW) fiber lasers that provide more than 300W of output power in a near diffraction limited, single transverse mode, spectrally stabilized output beam having a narrow line-width. The demonstrated design is simple and practical: the monolithic laser cavity may consist of only a coil of polarization maintaining (PM), large mode area (LMA) active fiber having a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) at one end and a fiber cleave at the other end. Proper selection of the coil diameter enables gain in only one polarization mode so as to provide the linearly polarized output. Fiber lasers built using this novel technique do not require any external polarizing components or the use of polarizing fiber. Such compact and robust fiber lasers are suitable for a variety of applications, such as multi-kW power scaling through coherent beam combining, nonlinear wavelength conversion processes using a variety of nonlinear materials, etc.
A new type of optical pulse shaper for arbitrary waveform generation is demonstrated, based on fiber Bragg grating and micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) technologies. This is an on-chip device which is compact, robust, monolithic, and programmable and can be used for a variety of applications such as higher order dispersion compensation in fiber communication links and high-energy pulse amplification.
The development of ultrashort pulse laser technology will have a strong impact on the advancement of laser machining. Ultrashort laser pulses can reduce the heat-affected zone and the shock-affected zone, resulting in much cleaner cuts, and therefore higher precision. Also, ultrashort laser pulses have shown remarkable opportunity for processing transparent materials such as glass, fused silica, and sapphire. However, acceptance of ultrafast technology is hindered by the size, cost, and complexity of ultrafast lasers. In this paper, we describe recent progress in fiber- based ultrafast laser technology which promises to be sufficiently compact, rugged, and potentially low-cost.
High-power compact ultrafast pulse sources based on optical fiber lasers are discussed. The optical efficiency of fiber- based ultrafast pulse sources is optimized by the implementation of double-clad Yb-doped fibers. The spatial limitations of ultrafast single-mode fiber lasers and amplifiers are overcome by the implementation of diffraction-limited multi-mode rare-earth-doped fibers, allowing for the generation of ultrafast pulses with large peak powers. In the temporal domain, a further increase in obtainable peak powers is made possible by the use of chirped pulse amplification or the amplification of pulses with parabolic temporal profiles. Parabolic pulses are generated in the asymptotic limit in high gain fiber amplifiers operating in the positive dispersion regime.
We describe a pulse shaping technique which uses second harmonic generation with Fourier synthetic quasi-phase- matching gratings. We demonstrate both amplitude and phase tailoring by generating a picosecond square-like pulse as well as trains of femtosecond pulses with a terahertz-range repetition rate from either a transform-limited or chirped pump pulse.
The current status of ultrafast fiber lasers is discussed. Recent advances in optical fiber designs as well as improved saturable absorbers have greatly improved the performance and the reliability of ultrafast fiber oscillators. Equally significant have been improvements in ultrafast fiber amplifier designs and compact chirped pulse amplification systems in conjunction with chirped periodically-poled LiNbO3, which now allow the manufacture of compact ultrafast fiber laser systems that can exceed the performance of conventional ultrafast lasers based on bulk optics. The unique size advantage of fiber lasers opens up the field of ultrafast optics to novel OEM-type applications. For example ultrafast fiber lasers have been successfully employed as subsystems in all-optical time delay scanning, for two-photon microscopy as well as for THz pulse generation.
Compact sources of high energy ultrashort pulses are described. Femtosecond and picosecond optical pulses with microjoule energies are obtained using chirped-pulse fiber amplifiers. Mode-locked fiber lasers and fast-tuned laser diodes are used to generate initial pulses for amplification. Efficient frequency conversion of amplified pulses is demonstrated and microjoule second-harmonic pulses are produced. The first all-fiber chirped pulse amplification circuit is demonstrated. It uses in-fiber chirped Bragg gratings, which replaces conventional diffraction-grating compressors and stretchers.
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