Modular, high energy, widely-tunable ultrafast fiber source

• US 6,885,683 B1
• Filed: 05/23/2000
• Issued: 04/26/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/23/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: IMRA America Incorporated (Aisin Corp.)
• Original Assignee: IMRA America Incorporated (Aisin Corp.)
• Inventors: Galvanauskas, Almantas, Harter, Donald J., Fermann, Martin E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Harvey, Minsun Oh
• Assistant Examiner(s): MENEFEE, JAMES A
• Application Number:
  US09/576,772
• Time in Patent Office: 1,799 Days
• Field of Search: 372/70, 372/18, 372/75, 372/6, 372/22, 372/25, 372/3
• US Class Current: 372/25
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/0057 Temporal shaping, e.g. pulse compression, frequency chirping soliton generation and propagation G02F1/3513, H01S3/063 and H01S3/108
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/0675 Resonators including a grating structure, e.g. distributed Bragg reflectors [DBR] or distributed feedback [DFB] fibre lasers
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/06754 Fibre amplifiers H01S3/06708 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/094019 Side pumped fibre, whereby pump light is coupled laterally into the fibre via an optical component like a prism, or a grating, or via V-groove coupling
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/094042 of a fibre laser
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/109 Frequency multiplication, e.g. harmonic generation
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/1112 Passive mode locking
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/1115 using intracavity saturable absorbers
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/1616 thulium
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/1618 ytterbium
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/302 in an optical fibre

Abstract

A modular, compact and widely tunable laser system for the efficient generation of high peak and high average power ultrashort pulses. Modularity is ensured by the implementation of interchangeable amplifier components. System compactness is ensured by employing efficient fiber amplifiers, directly or indirectly pumped by diode lasers. Peak power handling capability of the fiber amplifiers is expanded by using optimized pulse shapes, as well as dispersively broadened pulses. After amplification, the dispersively stretched pulses can be re-compressed to nearly their bandwidth limit by the implementation of another set of dispersive delay lines. To ensure a wide tunability of the whole system, Raman-shifting of the compact sources of the ultrashort pulses in conjunction with frequency-conversion in nonlinear optical crystals can be implemented, or an Anti-Stokes fiber in conjunction with fiber amplifiers and Raman-shifters are used.

Claims

1. A laser system comprising:

a source of seed pulses;

a fiber amplifier which inputs and amplifies said seed pulses, and outputs amplified pulses;

wherein

said seed pulses are generated and said fiber amplifier is configured such that the temporal form of the pulses produced by said fiber amplifier are parabolic.

2. A laser system comprising:

a source of seed pulses;

a fiber amplifier which inputs and amplifies said seed pulses, and outputs amplified pulses;

wherein

the seed source produces pulses which induce the formation of pulses within said fiber amplifier having a parabolic temporal form.

3. A laser system comprising:

a seed source generating pulses in the 1-1.15 μ

m wavelength region which have a spectral bandwidth larger than 0.3 nm and a pulse width between approximately 50 fs and 1 ns;

a fiber amplifier for broad bandwidth pulses which inputs and amplifies said pulses, and outputs amplified pulses; and

a pump laser for providing laser energy to said fiber amplifier;

wherein said seed source comprises a fiber laser, a Raman-shifter operable to shift the emission wavelength of the fiber laser to a spectral range longer than 2000 nm, and a nonlinear crystal operable to shift the wavelength of an output of the Raman-shifter to a spectral range from 1000 nm to 1500 nm.

4. A laser system according to claim 3, wherein the wavelength tuning curve of the nonlinear crystal is below the center wavelength of the output of the Raman-shifter.

5. A laser system according to claim 3, wherein said Raman-shifter comprises non-amplifying fibers or amplifying fibers with refractive index profiles and rare earth amplifier ions selected to generate pulses within a wavelength range of approximately 600-5000 nm.

6. A laser system according to claim 3, wherein the seed source comprises:

an Er fiber laser;

a silica Raman-shifting fiber which inputs the output of said Er fiber laser and outputs to said fiber amplifier; and

a fluoride Raman shifter which inputs said amplified pulses;

wherein said fiber amplifier is a Tm fiber amplifier.

7. A laser system according to claim 6, further comprising:

a nonlinear crystal which inputs an output of said fluoride Raman-shifting fiber so as to perform frequency-doubling thereon.

8. A laser system according to claim 3, wherein the seed source comprises:

an Er fiber laser;

a nonlinear crystal which inputs an output of said Er fiber laser so as to perform frequency-doubling thereon; and

a Raman-shifter which inputs the frequency-doubled output of said non-linear crystal.

9. A laser system according to claim 8, wherein the seed source is a passively modelocked fiber laser, and further wherein said Raman shifting fiber is a holey fiber which is used to Raman-shift the frequency-doubled output of the nonlinear crystal from a wavelength range of approximately 750 nm to approximately 1050 nm.

10. A laser system according to claim 9, wherein said Raman shifting fiber is a holey fiber whose dispersion varies with wavelength in a manner so as to optimize said Raman-shift.

11. A laser system according to claim 8, wherein the seed source is a passively modelocked fiber laser, and further wherein a range of non-amplifying fibers and amplifying fibers with different refractive index profiles and different rare-earth amplifier ions are used to Raman-shift the frequency-doubled output of said nonlinear crystal from the wavelength range of around 750 nm to around 5000 nm.

12. A laser system according to claim 3, wherein the seed source comprises a passively modelocked fiber laser.

13. A laser system according to claim 12, wherein the passively modelocked fiber laser is a Yb fiber laser.

14. A laser system according to claim 12, wherein the passively modelocked fiber laser is a Nd fiber laser.

15. A laser system according to claim 12, wherein the passively modelocked fiber laser is multi-mode.

16. A laser system according to claim 15, wherein the passively modelocked fiber laser is polarization maintaining.

17. A laser system according to claim 12, wherein the passively modelocked fiber laser is single-mode and polarization maintaining.

18. A laser system according to claim 3, wherein the seed source comprises:

a fiber laser; and

a frequency-shifting fiber which inputs the output of said fiber laser and outputs an anti-Stokes, blue-shifted output.

19. A laser system according to claim 18, wherein said fiber laser is an Er, Er/Yb, Pr or Tm fiber laser.

20. A laser system according to claim 3,

wherein the seed source produces pulses which induce the formation of parabolic pulses within said fiber amplifier.

21. A laser system according to claim 20, further comprising:

a coupler between the seed source and the fiber amplifier, which couples the seed source to the fiber amplifier, and which further comprises an optical fiber with a length less than 1 km.

22. A laser system according to claim 3, further comprising:

an optical delivery fiber coupled to the output of the fiber amplifier.

23. A laser system according to claim 22, wherein said optical delivery fiber is selected from the group consisting of:

a holey fiber, a length of few-moded fiber and a length of few-moded fiber spliced together with one or two lengths of single-mode fiber.

24. A laser system according to claim 23, wherein said seed source produces pulses shorter than 100 ps, so as to induce the formation of parabolic pulses within said fiber amplifier, and further wherein said fiber amplifier has a gain larger than 10.

25. A laser system according to claim 24, further comprising

a pulse stretcher which receives the pulses from said seed source, dispersively stretches said pulses in time, and outputs said stretched pulses to said fiber amplifier.

26. A laser system according to claim 25, further comprising:

a pulse compressor for temporally compressing said amplified pulses;

wherein the dispersion of the pulse compressor is such that the pulse compressor outputs approximately bandwidth-limited pulses.

27. A laser system according to claim 3, wherein the seed source comprises:

a Tm or Ho fiber laser; and

a nonlinear crystal which inputs an output of said Tm or Ho fiber laser, and performs frequency-doubling thereon.

28. A laser system according to claim 3, wherein the fiber amplifier is either Nd or Yb doped.

29. A laser system according to claim 3, further comprising:

a pulse compressor for temporally compressing the amplified pulses to approximately their bandwidth limit.

30. A laser system according to claim 3, wherein the seed source is a directly modulated semiconductor laser.