Andrew Malinowski

Picosecond fiber MOPA pumped supercontinuum source with 39 W output power

We report picosecond fiber MOPA pumped supercontinuum source with 39W output, spanning at least 0.4–1.75µm with high and relatively uniform spectral power density of ∼31.7mW/nm corresponding to peak power density of ∼12.5W/nm in 20ps pulse.

High power pulsed fiber MOPA system incorporating electro-optic modulator based adaptive pulse shaping

We demonstrate active pulse shaping using an Electro-Optic Modulator in order to compensate the pulse shaping effects caused by Gain Saturation in a high power Yb doped fiber amplifier chain and to generate various custom-defined output pulse shapes. Square, step and smooth pulse shapes are achieved, with mJ pulse energies. Use of a modulator to shape pulses rather than direct modulation of the diode drive current allows us to eliminate undesired transients due to laser start up dynamics. The required shaping is calculated based on a simple measurement of amplifier performance, and does not require detailed modeling of the amplifier dynamics.

Ultra-short pulse Yb/sup 3+/ fiber based laser and amplifier system producing >25 W average power

We have demonstrated an ultra-short-pulse Yb/sup 3+/-fiber laser and amplifier system that produces >25 W average power. The output pulses were recompressed to a duration of 110 fs using a standard bulk grating-based compressor.

Polarisation maintaining 100-W Yb-fiber MOPA producing micro-J pulses tunable in duration from 1-21 ps

This paper demonstrates a single polarisation, 1.06 microm Yb-doped fiber MOPA, delivering 21 ps pulses in a diffraction limited beam at repetition rates of up to 908 MHz and average output power of 100 W. The maximum pulse energy was 1.7 microJ at a repetition rate of 56 MHz, with corresponding peak power of 85 kW. The 100 W power was limited by available diode pump power and scaling to higher power levels is discussed. We also report self-phase-modulation based pulse compression which produced pulse durations as short as 1.1 ps from an external grating compressor. Using 4.2 ps pulses at a repetition rate of 227 MHz enabled 26 W of visible laser power (50% SHG efficiency) to be demonstrated.

321 W average power, 1 GHz, 20 ps, 1060 nm pulsed fiber MOPA source

Pulses from a gain-switched laser diode were amplified in a fiber MOPA system to produce in excess of 320 W of average power in 20 ps pulses at 1 GHz repetition rate at 1060 nm.

PPMgLN-Based High-Power Optical Parametric Oscillator Pumped by Yb

We report a periodically poled magnesium-oxide-doped lithium niobate (PPMgLN) based optical parametric oscillator (OPO) pumped by a diode-seeded, linearly polarized, high-power, pulsed, ytterbium fiber master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA). Using adaptive pulse shaping of the seed laser (using an external modulator), we demonstrate a reduction in the impact of dynamic gain saturation and optical Kerr/Raman nonlinearities within the fiber MOPA, obtaining shaped signal and idler pulses at the OPO output and reduced spectral bandwidths. A maximum average output power of 26.5 W was obtained from the MOPA at 1062 nm. An output power as high as 11 W from the OPO at an overall slope efficiency of 67% was achieved, with 2.7 W of output power obtained at a wavelength of 3.5 mum. Our experiments were pump-power-limited and considerable scope remains for further power scaling of such OPOs using this approach.

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We review the rapid recent progress in the development of short pulse high-power fiber laser and amplifier devices. Use of cladding pump technology now provides a route to compact and efficient laser and amplifier systems with high beam quality and high output powers. A new Yb-fiber CPA system incorporating a CFBG stretcher with both 2nd and 3rd order dispersion is presented for high pulse energy applications. In addition, a simplified Yb-fiber parabolic amplifier system is also shown to be suitable for producing higher average powers, here up to 25 W.

-Doped Fiber Amplifier Incorporates Active Pulse Shaping

The significance of nuclear spin polarisation in time-resolved optical studies of III-V semiconductors is addressed. Electron Larmor beats in pump-probe reflectivity from a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well show Overhauser shift of 0.7 T due to accumulated nuclear polarisation/I=0.065. This leads to precision values of electron g-factor, elucidates nuclear spin pumping and diffusion mechanisms in quantum wells and informs discussion of implications for spin-electronics and transport.

Short pulse high power fiber laser systems

20 ps pulses at 1 GHz repetition rate were obtained from a gain-switched 1.06 /spl mu/m semiconductor laser utilizing pulse compression with normally dispersive fiber. The pulses were amplified in fiber to give average output power 11.1 W.

Dynamic nuclear Overhauser shifts in Larmor beats from a quantum well

We demonstrate the selective excitation of individual Raman Stokes lines of up to the ninth order by pumping with rectangular-shaped optical pulses at 530 nm from a frequency-doubled adaptively pulse shaped fiber master oscillator power amplifier. We achieve extinction ratios of up to 15 dB between selected and adjacent Raman orders in a 1-km-long fiber.