Mode-locked operation of a master oscillator power amplifier

We report the first mode-locked operation of a tapered amplifier MOPA to generate short optical pulses with record high average powers and pulse energies. The MOPA is constructed using a discrete semiconductor oscillator and amplifier operating at 940 mm wavelength. Pulses of 4.2 ps duration are generated with average powers of 296 mW and peak powers of 28.1 W. The energy of these pulses was 118 pJ, corresponding to energies more than an order magnitude greater than the gain saturation energy in the mode-locked laser itself, and also corresponds to energies internal in the amplifier in excess of the gain saturation energy. Although the amplifier saturation energy limits the pulse energy obtainable in a mode-locked laser, the MOPA configuration demonstrates that generation of pulses with energies in excess of the amplifier saturation energy is feasible in a post-amplification stage     

Ultrashort Pulses From a Mode-Locked Diode-Oscillator Yb-Fiber-Amplifier System

Ultrashort optical pulses are generated using a hybrid master oscillator power amplifier source. Pulses 2.2 ps in duration generated by a two-contact, bent-waveguide passively mode-locked semiconductor laser are amplified in a ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier to an average power of 0.8 W. External pulse compression yields durations as low as 765 fs with peak powers as high as 0.9kW. Amplification of the harmonically mode-locked diode output has also been demonstrated at the eighth harmonic     

Broad-band diode-pumped ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier with 34-dBmoutput power

We investigate a high-power diode-pumped double-clad ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier with 34-dBm average output power and 1050-1095-nm bandwidth. A multidiode concentrator pumps the amplifier at 980 nm, with ~6 W of power launched into the inner cladding. Besides CW-signals, we amplify pulses from a mode-locked laser to 1 kW of peak power with only minor nonlinear distortions as well as pulses from a Q-switched laser to 50 μJ of energy. Reflections and backscatter limit the gain of the amplifier to 40 dB for a pump power of 2.5 W. For higher pump-powers than this, the amplifier started to self-Q-switch. The results are important for the development of cladding-pumped high-power fiber amplifiers     

Ultrashort Pulse Amplification at 1080 nm With a Long-Wavelength InGaAs–GaAs Flared Amplifier

Pulses of 5 ps in duration have been amplified using a long-wavelength InGaAs-GaAs semiconductor optical amplifier containing a flared waveguide. The amplifier is seeded using short pulses emitted by a passively mode-locked semiconductor laser. Average output powers of 50 mW have been obtained at a center wavelength of 1080 nm for a drive current of 290 mA. Pulse compression yields durations as short as 520 fs and peak powers as high as 40 W. Perspectives for combining the semiconductor master oscillator power amplifier with Yb fiber amplifiers in a hybrid configuration are also briefly discussed.     

High power mode-locked compound laser using a tapered semiconductoramplifier

A new type of a high power mode-locked laser, based on a tapered stripe traveling wave semiconductor amplifier and an additional separate narrow stripe gain element is described. Active mode-locking, achieved by RF modulation of the narrow stripe, resulted in pulses as short as 12 ps. Separately, maximum peak powers of 16 W and pulse energies above 0.5 nJ were observed     

Tunable Raman Soliton Source Using Mode-Locked Tm–Ho Fiber Laser

We report a femtosecond pulse source that uses a mode-locked Tm-Ho oscillator and a self-frequency shift of Raman solitons in Tm-Ho power amplifier. The master oscillator mode-locked by an antimonide-based saturable absorber mirror produces 750-fs transform-limited soliton pulses over the tuning range from 1912 to 1972 nm. The soliton self-frequency shift in the amplifier resulted in transform-limited pulses with the wavelength adjusted by varying the amplifier pump power. We obtain ~150-fs soliton pulses at the wavelength of 2150 nm with average power up to 230 mW corresponding to the peak power of 27 kW. The efficiency of Raman conversion ranges from 47% to 62% over the tuning range     

All-Fiber Picosecond Laser System at 1.5 $mu$m Based on Amplification in Short and Heavily Doped Phosphate-Glass Fiber

Amplification of ultrashort pulses in doped fibers is limited by an onset of nonlinear effects in the fiber. At the 1.5-mum wavelength, single-mode fibers typically have anomalous dispersion. The self-phase modulation combined with dispersion leads to instability of multinanojoule pulses in such fibers. Various techniques developed to amplify pulses beyond the nonlinearity limit typically rely on a delicate balance between dispersive and nonlinear effects in different parts of the laser system. We report a simple all-fiber alternative to these complex techniques that utilizes a rapid amplification of pulses in a short and heavily doped phosphate-glass active fiber. In our preliminary experiments, picosecond pulses at 1.5 mum generated by a passively mode-locked fiber oscillator at a repetition rate of 70 MHz are amplified in a 15-cm-long heavily Er-Yb codoped fiber amplifier to the average output power of 1.425 W. The pulse energy and peak power reach 20.4 nJ and 16.6 kW, respectively, while the pulse distortion is minimal in both temporal and spectral domains. Further power up-scaling is possible by using active phosphate fiber with a large mode area, in the amplifier stage     

利用非线性偏振旋转锁模技术产生0.7nJ,1.5ps光脉冲

为了研究锁模光纤激光器以增益平坦型掺铒光纤放大器作为增益介质对输出特性的影响,采用增益平坦型掺铒光纤放大器结合光纤偏振控制器、偏振相关光隔离器组成锁模光纤激光器,基于非线性偏振旋转锁模技术,实现稳定、自起振锁模运转,得到了中心波长1560nm、重复频率6.495MHz、单脉冲能量0.7nJ、脉宽1.5ps的超短光脉冲。同时实验观察到峰值波长为1557nm和1570nm的双峰值波长锁模脉冲的产生。结果表明,采用增益平坦型掺铒光纤放大器替代普通掺铒光纤组成锁模光纤激光器,可获得较高单脉冲能量的超短光脉冲,锁模脉冲的输出光谱可能出现双峰结构,从而可为超短脉冲光纤激光器设计及实用化提供参考。     

Amplification of a low-power picosecond Nd:YVO/sub 4/ laser by a diode-laser side-pumped grazing-incidence slab amplifier

An optimized diode-laser side-pumped grazing-incidence Nd:YVO/sub 4/ amplifier was used to increase the power of a 50-mW 150-MHz continuous-wave (CW)-pumped mode-locked oscillator up to 6.1 W in single pass, with 22% optical-to-optical efficiency, or up to 8.4 W in double pass, with 30% efficiency. Both beam quality (M/sup 2/<1.4 from TEM/sub 00/ seed pulses) and pulse duration (7.5 ps from 6.9 ps) were preserved. Single- or double-pass small-signal gain greater than 40 dB was achieved. These experimental results have been corroborated by a numerical model analysis of the amplifier.     

A highly stable 30 W average power mode-locked Nd:YAG laser

Mode locking of a CW pumped Nd:YAG laser operating in the TEM01or donut mode using an intracavity acoustooptic AM modulator is described. Mode-locking investigations to date have concentrated on obtaining as short pulses as possible at the expense of average and peak laser output power. We describe a mode-locked system for field use having an average output of 30 W, with pulses recurring at a 100 MHz rate and having a peak power in excess of 0.5 kW. Detector limited pulses of 0.6 ns duration were recorded and the mode locking was stable for several hours requiring no feedback loop or fine adjustment.     

230 fs, 25 W pulses from conventional mode-locked laser diodes with saturable absorber created by ion implantation

230 fs, 25 W pulses are obtained from conventional mode-locked AlGaAs laser diodes with highly-reflecting external cavities. Uncoated commercial diodes are used with a region of saturable absorption created by ion implantation. The overall pulse performances are believed to be among the best reported from simple electrically-pumped laser diodes without using additional amplifier sections.<>     

Mode locking of Brewster-angled semiconductor lasers

Brewster-angled semiconductor laser diodes have been actively mode locked in an external cavity to produce mode-locked pulses of 11 ps duration and 0.5 W peak power with no evidence of temporal or spectral substructure.     

Mode-locked, long-cavity, erbium fiber lasers with subsequentsoliton-like compression

Erbium fiber lasers are described that have cavity lengths of 20-5000 m and are mode-locked at the fundamental cavity frequency using an integrated-optic intensity modulator driven by a novel pulse generator. Resulting optical pulses at 1536 nm were recorded with a synchroscan streak camera and show durations of 10-80 ps with peak powers over 6 W. The shorter cavities yield nearly transform-limited pulses, which are narrowed by solitonlike compression to approximately 5 ps after propagation through an external 14 km fiber     

Optical Pulse Compression Based on High-doped Erbium Fiber Amplifier and Standard Single-mode Fiber

Proposed is a novel optical pulse compression technique based on high-doped erbium fiber amplifier and standard single-mode fiber（SMF）. We used the amplifier with the erbium ion concentration of 6.3）〈 10^-3 to amplify a hyperbolic secant pulse from a regeneratively mode-locked fiber laser. The central wavelength, pulsewidth and peak power of the pulse are 1 550 nm, 12. 5 ps and 3 mW, respectively. Then the amplified pulse with peak power level corresponding to a higher-order soliton is compressed when it propagates through a 3-km-long single-mode fiber. Studied are the compressed pulses under different pump powers and fiber lengths. The results show that it can get a narrower pulse, and solve the difficulty that pulses at low power can not be compressed directly in the fiber. And the construct is compact.     

Optical clock distribution using a mode-locked semiconductor laserdiode system

An experiment in which a high-power mode-locked femtosecond semiconductor laser system was used as a source of extremely low jitter intense optical pulses in the distribution of a clock to 1024 ports via optical fibers is described. The total accumulated dynamic clock jitter between any two ports, which contains both correlated and uncorrelated sources, was measured to be less than 12 ps. This laser system produced a train of 460-fs optical pulses with over 70 W of peak power at 302 MHz. These results represent the largest fanout with the minimum timing jitter for an optically distributed clocking network     

Low threshold tunable soliton source

An actively mode-locked erbium-fiber laser with continuous wavelength tuning over the range 1528-1565 nm has been demonstrated. A gain-saturated InGaAsP NTW semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is used as the active mode locking element, functioning as an amplitude modulator which provides gain and has <1 dB polarization dependence. The fiber laser is diode pumped at 1480 nm with a threshold of 6 mW, and provides pulses of 25 ps (FWHM) with a transform product of 0.4 and >12 dBm peak power     

Short-Pulse Dual-Wavelength System Based on Mode-Locked Diode Lasers With a Single Polarization-Maintaining Yb:Fiber Amplifier

In this paper, we report on the development of a short-pulse dual-wavelength source consisting of mode-locked diode lasers and a single Yb-doped double-clad fiber amplifier. Two mode-locked external-cavity semiconductor oscillators operating at a repetition rate of 577 MHz with center wavelengths of 1040 nm and 1079 nm are synchronized, producing short pulses that are injected into a Yb-doped polarization-maintaining fiber for amplification. Numerical simulations are used to determine the optimal fiber length and seeding configuration for dual-wavelength amplification in the fiber. Each signal is amplified to an average power of 0.5 W with pulse durations of around 5 ps. Performance issues associated with two-signal amplification in Yb-doped fibers are discussed, as well as perspectives for increasing the wavelength separation of the seed lasers.      

Dynamic analysis of mode-locked sampled-grating distributed Braggreflector laser diodes

A mode-locked sampled-grating distributed-Bragg-reflector (SGDBR) laser diode for generating a train of light pulses at terahertz repetition rates is proposed with a numerical analysis based on a time-domain large-signal model. The device consists of three parts: the saturable absorber section which serves as a mode-locker, the gain section as an amplifier, and the SGDBR as a spectrum filter. It is predicted that spectrum filtering of the SGDBR along with passive mode locking due to the saturable absorber is effective in generating a train of transform-limited mode-locked pulses at a high repetition rate     

Generation of high-power femtosecond pulses near 1.5 μm using acolor-center laser system

The authors have developed a high-power F-center laser system capable of generating femtosecond pulses with energies exceeding 50 pJ at wavelengths near 1.5 μm. Short pulses (140 fs) from an additive-pulse mode-locked NaCl laser are amplified in a multipass NaCl amplifier at kilohertz repetition rates. The system can generate peak powers approaching 500 MW, with wavelengths tunable from 1.52 to 1.64 μm. The amplified pulses are used to generate a continuum in various solid media without optical damage. The continuum generated in BaF₂ is extremely broad, extending from below 400 nm to 3.5 μm. Construction and operating details are discussed as well as the system's utility for femtosecond measurements in the infrared and high-power experiments     

Active mode-locking of an external cavity GaInAsP laserincorporating a fibre-grating reflector

Active mode-locking of a GaInAsP semiconductor diode amplifier, coupled to an external cavity incorporating an optical fibre grating as a bandwidth limiting and wavelength selective mirror, is reported. The grating defined the central emission wavelength to the 1.53 μm region where mode-locked pulses having durations of less than 10 ps were generated at a repetition rate of 648 MHz