Opt Lett. 2011 Jun 15;36(12):2293-5. doi: 10.1364/OL.36.002293.

Kilowatt-peak-power, single-frequency, pulsed fiber laser near 2 μm.

Optics letters

Jihong Geng, Qing Wang, Zack Jiang, Tao Luo, Shibin Jiang, Gregory Czarnecki

PMID: 21685997 DOI: 10.1364/OL.36.002293

Abstract

We generated single-frequency pulses at kilowatt peak power from an all-fiber Tm-doped master oscillator power amplifier system, which is the first report of this kind (to the best of our knowledge) of a laser in the 2 μm region. Compared with the laser linewidth of seed pulses, spectral broadening by a factor of 3 was observed with the amplified pulses. This was attributed to self-phase modulation in passive pigtail fibers of the components (isolator and wavelength division multiplexing) that were placed after the fiber amplifier. The short pulse width (~7 ns) of the kilowatt-level pulses prevents an onset of stimulated Brillouin scattering in the long fiber. When launching the pulses into several-meter single-mode fiber, significant nonlinear spectral broadening occurs due to modulation instability in the fiber. This reaction is beneficial for generation of a mid- and long-wavelength IR supercontinuum in nonlinear IR fibers.

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