Martin Gebhardt

152 W average power Tm-doped fiber CPA system.

A high-power thulium (Tm)-doped fiber chirped-pulse amplification system emitting a record compressed average output power of 152 W and 4 MW peak power is demonstrated. This result is enabled by utilizing Tm-doped photonic crystal fibers with mode-field diameters of 35 μm, which mitigate detrimental nonlinearities, exhibit slope efficiencies of more than 50%, and allow for reaching a pump-power-limited average output power of 241 W. The high-compression efficiency has been achieved by using multilayer dielectric gratings with diffraction efficiencies higher than 98%.

High peak-power mid-infrared ZnGeP₂ optical parametric oscillator pumped by a Tm:fiber master oscillator power amplifier system.

We report on the utilization of a novel Tm:fiber laser source for mid-IR ZnGeP2 (ZGP) optical parametric oscillator (OPO) pumping. The pump laser is built in a master oscillator power-amplifier configuration delivering up to 3.36 W of polarized, diffraction limited output power with 7 ns pulse duration and 4 kHz repetition rate. This corresponds to a peak power of ∼121  kW and a pulse energy of ∼0.84  mJ. With this source, we generated 27.9 kW of total mid-IR peak power in a doubly resonant oscillator (DRO) configuration. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the highest ever demonstrated mid-IR peak power from a directly Tm:fiber laser pumped ZGP OPO. Moreover, a DRO output with about 284 μJ of total mid-IR pulse energy was demonstrated using 100 ns pump pulses. The wavelength tuning of the idler was extended to 6 μm with lower output power in another OPO experiment.

Amplification of nanosecond pulses to megawatt peak power levels in Tm 3+ -doped photonic crystal fiber rod

We report amplification of sub-10-100 ns pulses with repetition rates from 1 to 20 kHz in a rod-type thulium-doped photonic crystal fiber with 80 μm core diameter. The rod is pumped with a 793 nm laser diode and produces the highest peak power at 1 kHz repetition rate with 6.5 ns pulse duration and more than 7 W average output power. This result exemplifies the potential of this fiber design to scale pulse peak powers and pulse energies to the megawatt and multi-millijoule range in the 2 μm wavelength regime.

Impact of atmospheric molecular absorption on the temporal and spatial evolution of ultra-short optical pulses.

We present a rigorous study on the impact of atmospheric molecular absorption on the linear propagation of ultrashort pulses in the mid-infrared wavelength region. An ultrafast thulium-based fiber laser was employed to experimentally investigate ultrashort-pulse propagation through the atmosphere in a spectral region containing several strong molecular absorption lines. The atmospheric absorption profile causes a significant degradation of the pulse quality in the time domain as well as a distortion of the transverse beam profile in the spatial domain. Numerical simulations carried out in the small signal limit accurately reproduce the experimental observations in the time domain and reveal that the relative loss in peak power after propagation can be more than twice as high as the relative amount of absorbed average power. Although their nature is purely linear (i.e. the intensities considered are sufficiently low) the discussed effects represent significant challenges to performance-scaling of mid-infrared ultrafast lasers operating in spectral regions with molecular absorption bands. Guidelines for an efficient mitigation of the pulse quality degradation and the beam profile distortion are discussed.

Nonlinear compression of an ultrashort-pulse thulium-based fiber laser to sub-70 fs in Kagome photonic crystal fiber

Nonlinear pulse compression of ultrashort pulses is an established method for reducing the pulse duration and increasing the pulse peak power beyond the intrinsic limits of a given laser architecture. In this proof-of-principle experiment, we demonstrate nonlinear compression of the pulses emitted by a high-repetition-rate thulium-based fiber CPA system. The initial pulse duration of about 400 fs has been shortened to <70  fs with 19.7 μJ of pulse energy, which corresponds to about 200 MW of pulse peak power.

Thulium-doped fiber chirped-pulse amplification system with 2 GW of peak power.

Thulium-doped fibers with ultra large mode-field areas offer new opportunities for the power scaling of mid-IR ultrashort-pulse laser sources. Here, we present a laser system delivering a pulse-peak power of 2 GW and a nearly transform-limited pulse duration of 200 fs in combination with 28.7 W of average power. This performance level has been achieved by optimizing the pulse shape, reducing the overlap with atmospheric absorption lines, and incorporating a climate chamber to reduce the humidity of the atmospheric environment.

Self-compression in a solid fiber to 24 MW peak power with few-cycle pulses at 2 μm wavelength.

We report on the experimental realization of a compact, fiber-based, ultrashort-pulse laser system in the 2 μm wavelength region delivering 24 fs pulse duration with 24 MW pulse peak power and 24.6 W average power. This performance level has been enabled by the favorable quadratic wavelength-dependence of the self-focusing limit, which has been experimentally verified to be at approximately 24 MW for circular polarization in a solid-core fused-silica fiber operated at a wavelength around 2 μm. The anomalous dispersion in this wavelength region allows for a simultaneous nonlinear spectral broadening and temporal pulse compression. This makes an additional compression stage redundant and facilitates a very simple and power-scalable approach. Simulations that include both the nonlinear pulse evolution and the transverse optical Kerr effect support the experimental results.

Coherent combination of two Tm-doped fiber amplifiers.

The efficient coherent combination of two ultrafast Tm-doped fiber amplifiers in the 2-μm wavelength region is demonstrated. The performance of the combined amplifiers is compared to the output characteristics of a single amplifier being limited by the onset of detrimental nonlinear effects. Nearly transform-limited pulses with 830-fs duration, 22-μJ pulse energy, and 25-MW peak power have been achieved with a combining efficiency greater than 90%. Based on this result, it can be expected that 2-μm-ultrafast-fiber-laser systems will enter new performance realms in the near future.

Acceleration of sub-relativistic electrons with an evanescent optical wave at a planar interface

We report on a theoretical and experimental study of the energy transfer between an optical evanescent wave, propagating in vacuum along the planar boundary of a dielectric material, and a beam of sub-relativistic electrons. The evanescent wave is excited via total internal reflection in the dielectric by an infrared (λ = 2 μm) femtosecond laser pulse. By matching the electron propagation velocity to the phase velocity of the evanescent wave, energy modulation of the electron beam is achieved. A maximum energy gain of 800 eV is observed, corresponding to the absorption of more than 1000 photons by one electron. The maximum observed acceleration gradient is 19 ± 2 MeV/m. The striking advantage of this scheme is that a structuring of the acceleration elements surface is not required, enabling the use of materials with high laser damage thresholds that are difficult to nano-structure, such as SiC, Al2O3 or CaF2.

Thulium fiber laser and application development

Within the past 10 years, thulium (Tm)-doped fiber lasers have emerged as a flexible platform offering high average power as well as high peak power. Many of the benefits and limitations of Tm:fiber lasers are similar to those for ytterbium (Yb)-doped fiber lasers, however the ~2 µm emission wavelength posses unique challenges in terms of laser development as well as several benefits for applications. In this presentation, we will review the progress of laser development in CW, nanosecond, picosecond, and femtosecond regimes. As a review of our efforts in the development of power amplifiers, we will compare large mode area (LMA) stepindex and photonic crystal fiber (PCF) architectures. In our research, we have found Tm-doped step index LMA fibers to offer relatively high efficiency and average powers at the expense of fundamental mode quality. By comparison, Tm-doped PCFs provide the largest mode area and quasi diffraction-limited beam quality however they are approximately half as efficient as step-index fibers. In terms of defense related applications, the most prominent use of Tm:fiber lasers is to pump nonlinear conversion to the mid-IR such as supercontinuum generation and optical parametric oscillators/amplifiers (OPO/A). We have recently demonstrated Tm:fiber pumped OPOs which generate ~28 kW peak power in the mid-IR. In addition, we will show that Tm:fiber lasers also offer interesting capabilities in the processing of semiconductors.