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

Author

Sousa, J.M. ; Nilsson, J. ; Renaud, C.C. ; Alvarez-Chavez, J.A. ; Grudinin, A.B. ; Minelly, J.D.

Author_Institution

INESC, Porto, Portugal

Volume

11

Issue

1

fYear

1999

Firstpage

39

Lastpage

41

Abstract

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 /spl sim/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.

Keywords

Q-switching; backscatter; light reflection; light scattering; nonlinear distortion; optical fibre amplifiers; optical fibre cladding; optical pumping; ytterbium; 1 kW; 2.5 W; 50 muJ; CW-signals; Q-switched laser; average output power; backscatter; broad-band diode-pumped ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier; cladding-pumped high-power fiber amplifiers; high-power diode-pumped double-clad ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier; inner cladding; light reflections; minor nonlinear distortions; mode-locked laser; multidiode concentrator; output power; peak power; pump power; self-Q-switch; Diodes; Fiber lasers; High power amplifiers; Laser mode locking; Laser noise; Optical pulses; Power amplifiers; Power lasers; Pulse amplifiers; Pump lasers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/68.736383

Filename

736383