High power short pulse fiber laser
First Claim
1. A pulsed fiber laser amplification system comprising:
- a passively modelocked fiber oscillator outputting optical pulses, said passively modelocked fiber oscillator comprising a saturable absorber disposed in a temperature-controlled saturable absorber module and an oscillator pump that optically pumps said passively modelocked fiber oscillator, wherein said saturable absorber exhibits a multi-temporal lifetime and is configured in such a way that Q-switched mode-locking evolves at a low oscillator pump power followed by cw mode locking at a higher operational pump power that exceeds a threshold pump power for operation of said modelocked fiber oscillator;
a fiber Bragg grating configured to control intra-cavity dispersion of said passively modelocked fiber oscillator and configured as a mirror of said passively modelocked fiber oscillator;
a fiber amplifier optically connected to said modelocked fiber oscillator via a first optical path, said amplifier amplifying said optical pulses;
an optical pump source optically connected to said fiber amplifier;
a pulse compressor optically coupled to receive said amplified optical pulses output from fiber amplifier via a second optical path; and
(i) a first optical tap in said first optical path between said modelocked fiber oscillator and said fiber amplifier, anda first feedback loop from said first tap to control said modelocked fiber oscillator based on measurement of output from said first optical tap, said first feedback loop from said first tap controlling at least said oscillator pump, and(ii) a second optical tap in said second optical path between said fiber amplifier and said compressor, anda second feedback loop from said second tap to control said fiber amplifier based on measurement of output from said second optical tap.
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Abstract
A pulsed laser comprises an oscillator and amplifier. An attenuator and/or pre-compressor may be disposed between the oscillator and amplifier to improve performance and possibly the quality of pulses output from the laser. Such pre-compression may be implemented with spectral filters and/or dispersive elements between the oscillator and amplifier. The pulsed laser may have a modular design comprising modular devices that may have Telcordia-graded quality and reliability. Fiber pigtails extending from the device modules can be spliced together to form laser system. In one embodiment, a laser system operating at approximately 1050 nm comprises an oscillator having a spectral bandwidth of approximately 19 nm. This oscillator signal can be manipulated to generate a pulse having a width below approximately 90 fs. A modelocked linear fiber laser cavity with enhanced pulse-width control includes concatenated sections of both polarization-maintaining and non-polarization-maintaining fibers. Apodized fiber Bragg gratings and integrated fiber polarizers are included in the cavity to assist in linearly polarizing the output of the cavity. Very short pulses with a large optical bandwidth are obtained by matching the dispersion value of the fiber Bragg grating to the inverse of the dispersion of the intra-cavity fiber.
137 Citations
32 Claims
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1. A pulsed fiber laser amplification system comprising:
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a passively modelocked fiber oscillator outputting optical pulses, said passively modelocked fiber oscillator comprising a saturable absorber disposed in a temperature-controlled saturable absorber module and an oscillator pump that optically pumps said passively modelocked fiber oscillator, wherein said saturable absorber exhibits a multi-temporal lifetime and is configured in such a way that Q-switched mode-locking evolves at a low oscillator pump power followed by cw mode locking at a higher operational pump power that exceeds a threshold pump power for operation of said modelocked fiber oscillator; a fiber Bragg grating configured to control intra-cavity dispersion of said passively modelocked fiber oscillator and configured as a mirror of said passively modelocked fiber oscillator; a fiber amplifier optically connected to said modelocked fiber oscillator via a first optical path, said amplifier amplifying said optical pulses; an optical pump source optically connected to said fiber amplifier; a pulse compressor optically coupled to receive said amplified optical pulses output from fiber amplifier via a second optical path; and (i) a first optical tap in said first optical path between said modelocked fiber oscillator and said fiber amplifier, and a first feedback loop from said first tap to control said modelocked fiber oscillator based on measurement of output from said first optical tap, said first feedback loop from said first tap controlling at least said oscillator pump, and (ii) a second optical tap in said second optical path between said fiber amplifier and said compressor, and a second feedback loop from said second tap to control said fiber amplifier based on measurement of output from said second optical tap. - 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, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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Specification