M. L. Stock

Environmentally stable Kerr-type mode-locked erbium fiber laser producing 360-fs pulses

We demonstrate an environmentally stable Kerr-type mode-locked erbium fiber laser producing 360-fs near-bandwidth-limited pulses. Environmentally stable operation is possible in the presence of nonpolarization-maintaining fiber components provided that their overall length is short compared with the length of the polarization-maintaining fiber components. The pulses are generated at a stable repetition rate of 27 MHz and have an energy content of 60 pJ.

Passive mode locking by using nonlinear polarization evolution in a polarization-maintaining erbium-doped fiber

By using a new simple cavity design, in which both linear and nonlinear polarization evolution are reproducibly controlled, we demonstrate passive mode locking in a Fabry–Perot-type erbium fiber laser. The laser generates stable trains of pulses as short as 200 fs with an energy content of 70 pJ at repetition rates as high as 100 MHz.

Ultrawide tunable Er soliton fiber laser amplified in Yb-doped fiber.

A Raman-shifted and frequency-doubled high-power Er-fiber soliton laser for seeding an efficient high-power Yb fiber femtosecond amplifier is demonstrated. The Raman-shifted and frequency-doubled Er-soliton laser is tunable from 1.00 to 1.070microm and produces bandwidth-limited 24-pJ pulses at a repetition rate of 50 MHz with a FWHM pulse width of 170 fs at 1.040microm . The Yb(3+) amplifier has a slope efficiency of 52% and generates 3-ps linearly chirped pulses with an average power of 0.8 W at 1.05microm . After pulse compression, 74-fs bandwidth-limited pulses with an average power of 0.4 W and a pulse energy of 8 nJ are generated.

Chirped pulse amplification in an erbium-doped fiber oscillator/ erbium-doped fiber amplifier system

Abstract Chirped pulse amplification in erbium fibers is demonstrated. A passively mode locked erbium-doped fiber laser source provides the seed pulses for an erbium-doped fiber amplifier. The system produces femtosecond pulses at a repetition rate of 33 MHz with an energy content as high as 1.4 nJ.

Chirped-pulse amplification of ultrashort pulses with a multimode Tm:ZBLAN fiber upconversion amplifier

Microjoule pulse energies are achieved from a single-stage upconversion fiber amplifier for the first time, to our knowledge, in this demonstration of chirped-pulse amplification with a multimode Tm:ZBLAN fiber. A Ti:sapphire laser system provides the seed pulse for the fiber upconversion amplifier that produces picosecond pulse trains with energies as great as 16 μJ at a repetition rate of 4.4 kHz.

Alexandrite-pumped alexandrite regenerative amplifier for femtosecond pulse amplification.

We demonstrate a regenerative amplif ier incorporating alexandrite as the gain medium that is pumped by an alexandrite laser. Temperature-altered gain permitted the 728-nm alexandrite pump laser, operating at room temperature, to pump a 780-800-nm alexandrite laser that was maintained at elevated temperatures. 200-fs pulses from a Ti:sapphire oscillator were amplif ied to the millijoule level. This system also amplif ied femtosecond pulses from a frequency-doubled Er-doped fiber laser.

Synchronous mode locking using pump-induced phase modulation.

Synchronous mode locking using phase modulation directly from the pump laser is demonstrated for what is to our knowledge the first time. A synchronously mode-locked erbium/ytterbium fiber laser pumped with a Nd:YAG laser delivers 2.4-ps pulses at a repetition rate of 100 MHz. The emission wavelength is self-adjusting to the cavity length within a locking range of 1 mm. The relative timing jitter is consistently less than 40% of the fiber laser pulse width and less than 1% of the pump pulse width.

100 /spl mu/J and 5.5 W Yb-fiber femtosecond chirped pulse amplifier system

Summary form only given. We have demonstrated the first all-fiber high-energy/power coherent pulse amplifier system based on Yb-doped fibers. Microjoule femtosecond pulses have been obtained at MHz-repetition rates. Achieved pulse durations and output powers constitute a significant improvement over the corresponding characteristics of Er-doped fiber amplifiers.

Polarized, 100 kW peak power, high brightness nanosecond lasers based on 3C optical fiber

3C (Chirally-Coupled Core) optical fiber establishes a technological platform for high brightness, power scalable lasers with an engineerable fiber geometry that enables robustly single-mode performance of large core diameter fibers. Here we report the demonstration of robust polarization preserving performance of 35 μm core 3C fiber for short pulse systems. A polarization extinction ratio (PER) of ~ 20 dB is stably maintained with ambient temperatures varying over a 50°C range from a Yb-doped double clad 3C fiber amplifier. We also demonstrate that this high-PER polarization output is insensitive to temperature gradients and mechanical perturbations in the 3C fiber amplifier. The ability to deliver high peak power pulses at high average powers while maintaining exceptional beam quality and a stable polarization state in an easily integrated format makes 3C fiber laser systems extremely attractive for harmonic generation to visible and UV wavelengths.

Upconversion chirped-pulse amplification of ultrashort pulses using a multimode Tm:ZBLAN fiber

Microjoule pulse energies are achieved from a single stage upconversion fiber amplifier for the first time in this demonstration of chirped pulse amplification using a multimode Tm:ZBLAN fiber. A Ti:sapphire laser system provides the seed pulse for the upconversion fiber amplifier which produces subpicosecond pulse trains with energies as great as 16 (mu) J at repetition rate of 4.4 kHz. The compressed pulse peak power is more than 1 MW, and the pulse is characterized both temporally and spatially.