Apparatus for producing femtosecond and picosecond pulses from modelocked fiber lasers cladding pumped with broad area diode laser arrays
First Claim
1. A modelocked laser, comprising:
- a double-clad fiber disposed within a cavity and operating as a gain medium, which generates laser energy in the form of pulses shorter than 100 psec;
a diode laser array coupled to one end of said double-clad fiber, which pumps said double-clad fiber with pump light;
reflecting means disposed within the cavity to reflect energy along an axis which passes through said double-clad fiber;
output means for receiving laser energy generated within the cavity and for outputting a portion of said laser energy;
modelocking initiation means for initiating production of short pulses in the cavity;
means for suppressing cladding modes in said double-clad fiber; and
means for controlling dispersion in the cavity.
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Abstract
A technique for the generation of picosecond (psec) and femtosecond (fsec) pulses from modelocked double-clad fiber lasers cladding pumped with broad area diode laser arrays is disclosed. Using an erbium/ytterbium fiber oscillator, 560 fsec pulses with pulse energies up to 40 pJ are generated at a wavelength of 1560 nm. In a dispersion-compensated cavity, pulses as short as 170 fsec with pulse energies up to 50 pJ are obtained. By adding a negatively chirped fiber Bragg grating for additional intracavity dispersion control, pulse widths of 3 psec with pulse energies up to 1 nJ are obtained. A saturable absorber is used for pulse start up, whereas nonlinear polarization evolution is exploited for steady-state pulse shaping. An environmentally stable design is ensured by employing birefringent fibers and a compensation scheme for linear and nonlinear polarization drifts in the cavity.
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25 Claims
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1. A modelocked laser, comprising:
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a double-clad fiber disposed within a cavity and operating as a gain medium, which generates laser energy in the form of pulses shorter than 100 psec; a diode laser array coupled to one end of said double-clad fiber, which pumps said double-clad fiber with pump light; reflecting means disposed within the cavity to reflect energy along an axis which passes through said double-clad fiber; output means for receiving laser energy generated within the cavity and for outputting a portion of said laser energy; modelocking initiation means for initiating production of short pulses in the cavity; means for suppressing cladding modes in said double-clad fiber; and means for controlling dispersion in the cavity. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
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Specification