High-speed, high-resolution materials processing strongly benefits from optical sources that deliver high peak power in
short, high-repetition-rate pulses of excellent beam quality. These sources are also of interest for achieving high average
power at nonlinearly-generated wavelengths. Until recently, high peak power, high-repetition-rate pulses have only been
available from solid-state lasers. Fiber lasers and amplifiers offer significant advantages over solid-state lasers in terms
of size and wall-plug efficiency. This paper presents a fiber-based master-oscillator/power-amplifier (MOPA) source at
1064nm featuring 84-μm-core, polarization-maintaining Yb-doped photonic crystal fiber that generates ~20ps - 100ps
pulses at variable pulse repetition frequencies (PRFs), from 10kHz to 100MHz. The flexibility in pulse format allows the
source to be tailored to the application. Where peak power is critical, the PRF is reduced to achieve maximum peak
power. Where average power is needed, the PRF is increased to achieve high average power. Peak powers of ~4MW
have been achieved at reduced PRF (100kHz), and average powers greater than 172W have been demonstrated at high
PRF (100MHz) in a linearly-polarized output beam.
In recent years fiber pulsed fiber lasers have began to challenge diode pumped solid state lasers in
performance. In particular double-clad fiber lasers and amplifiers with mJ energies and near diffraction
limited beam quality are gaining respect for applications such as materials processing, laser radar and
remote sensing. Frequency conversion of single-polarization fiber lasers further increases the application
space to such as underwater communications, underwater imaging, semiconductor processing and gas
sensing.
Yb fiber lasers have to date produced several mJ pulse energy and several MW peak power but, largely
due to materials issues Er based fiber laser systems underperforms in comparison. Relevant technologies
are reviewed.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.