Luke Taylor

150 W highly-efficient Raman fiber laser

We report a more than 150 W spectrally-clean continuous wave Raman fiber laser at 1120 nm with an optical efficiency of 85%. A approximately 30 m standard single mode silica fiber is used as Raman gain fiber to avoid second Stokes emission. A spectrally asymmetric resonator (in the sense of mirror reflection bandwidth) with usual fiber Bragg gratings is designed to minimize the laser power lost into the unwanted direction, even when the effective reflectivity of the rear fiber Bragg grating becomes as low as 81.5%.

25 W Raman-fiber-amplifier-based 589 nm laser for laser guide star

We report on a 25 W continuous wave narrow linewidth (< 2.3 MHz) 589 nm laser by efficient (> 95%) coherent beam combination of two narrow linewidth (< 1.5 MHz) Raman fiber amplifiers with a Mach-Zehnder interferometer scheme and frequency doubling in an external resonant cavity with an efficiency of 86%. The results demonstrate the narrow linewidth Raman fiber amplifier technology as a promising solution for developing laser for sodium laser guide star adaptive optics.

50W CW visible laser source at 589nm obtained via frequency doubling of three coherently combined narrow-band Raman fibre amplifiers

We demonstrate the cascaded coherent collinear combination of a seed-split triplet of 1178nm high-power narrow-band (sub-1.5MHz) SBS-suppressed CW Raman fibre amplifiers via nested free-space constructive quasi-Mach-Zehnder interferometry, after analysing the combination of the first two amplifiers in detail. Near-unity combination and cascaded-combination efficiencies are obtained at all power levels up to a maximum P(1178) > 60W. Frequency doubling of this cascaded-combined output in an external resonant cavity yields P(589) > 50W with peak conversion efficiency eta(589) ~85%. We observe no significant differences between the SHG of a single, combined pair or triplet of amplifiers. Although the system represents a successful power scalability demonstrator for fibre-based Na-D(2a)-tuned mesospheric laser-guide-star systems, we emphasise its inherent wavelength versatility and consider its spectroscopic and near-diffraction-limited qualities equally well suited to other applications.

Multiwatts narrow linewidth fiber Raman amplifiers

Up to 4.8 W, approximately 10 MHz, 1178 nm laser is obtained by Raman amplification of a distributed feedback diode laser in standard single mode fibers pumped by an 1120 nm Yb fiber laser. More than 10% efficiency and 27 dB amplification is achieved, limited by onset of stimulated Brillouin scattering. The ratio of Raman to Brillouin gain coefficient of a fiber is identified as a figure of merit for building a narrow linewidth fiber Raman amplifier.

Thermally induced dephasing in periodically poled KTP frequency-doubling crystals

A thermally induced spatial and temporal dephasing model of second-harmonic generation has been developed to describe the conversion efficiency and its degradation of periodically poled potassium titanium phosphate (PPKTP) in a cw, single-pass frequency conversion system. The model confirms the experimental data that show that second-harmonic power greater than 800 mW (15 kW/cm2) causes two-photon nonlinear absorption, leading to time-dependent photochromic damage in PPKTP. This added absorption degrades the conversion efficiency from an initial value of 19% to an unrecoverable asymptotic value of ∼8% in 2 h at 145 kW/cm2 of pump intensity through thermal detuning phase mismatch.

High power narrowband 589nm frequency doubled fibre laser source

We demonstrate high-power high-efficiency cavity-enhanced second harmonic generation of an in-house built ultra-high spectral density (SBS-suppressed) 1178 nm narrowband Raman fibre amplifier. Up to 14.5 W 589 nm CW emission is achieved with linewidth Delta nu(589) < 7 MHz in a diffraction-limited beam, with peak external conversion efficiency of 86%. The inherently high spectral and spatial qualities of the 589 nm source are particularly suited to both spectroscopic and Laser Guide Star applications, given the seed laser can be easily frequency-locked to the Na D(2a) emission line. Further, we expect the technology to be extendable, at similar or higher powers, to wavelengths limited only by the seed-pump-pair availability.

AFIRE: fiber Raman laser for laser guide star adaptive optics

Future adaptive optics systems will benefit from multiple sodium laser guide stars in achieving satisfactory sky coverage in combination with uniform and high-Strehl correction over a large field of view. For this purpose ESO is developing with industry AFIRE, a turn-key, rack-mounted 589-nm laser source based on a fiber Raman laser. The fiber laser will deliver the beam directly at the projector telescope. The required output power is in the order of 10 W in air per sodium laser guide star, in a diffraction-limited beam and with a bandwidth of < 2 GHz. This paper presents the design and first demonstration results obtained with the AFIRE breadboard. 4.2W CW at 589nm have so far been achieved with a ~20% SHG conversion efficiency.

39 W Narrow Linewidth Raman Fiber Amplifier with Frequency Doubling to 26.5 W at 589 nm

We report on a 39 W SBS-suppressed narrow-linewidth (<1.5 MHz) Raman fiber amplifier at 1178 nm, which is frequency doubled to 589 nm for laser guide star application (26.5 W generated in a preliminary test).

Multi-watt 589-nm Na D 2 -line generation via frequency doubling of a Raman fiber amplifier: a source for LGS-assisted AO

We develop a novel solid state fibre laser system, AFIRE, for the purposes of laser guidestar (LGS) assisted adaptive optics (AO), based on the second harmonic generation (SHG) from a high-power (P1178 ~25W) CW narrowband (Δυ < 3GHz) Raman fibre amplifier developed by IPF. We present what we believe to be the highest power, narrowband single-pass CW 589nm SHG result reported to date, P589 ~ 4.2W from P1178 ~ 19W (ηVIS > 22%). We demonstrate our understanding of the arising absorption-induced thermal effects (namely, dephasing and degradation of the conversion), offer predictions towards higher powers and conversion levels, and show that our current results are essentially pump-power limited. We are confident of the scalability of both the IR and visible parts of our system, to these higher output powers and conversion efficiencies.

High-power 938-nm cladding pumped fiber laser

We have developed a Nd:doped cladding pumped fiber amplifier, which operates at 938nm with greater than 2W of output power. The core co-dopants were specifically chosen to enhance emission at 938nm. The fiber was liquid nitrogen cooled in order to achieve four-level laser operation on a laser transition that is normally three level at room temperature, thus permitting efficient cladding pumping of the amplifier. Wavelength selective attenuation was induced by bending the fiber around a mandrel, which permitted near complete suppression of amplified spontaneous emission at 1088nm. We are presently seeking to scale the output of this laser to 10W. We will discuss the fiber and laser design issues involved in scaling the laser to the 10W power level and present our most recent results.