Fiber chirped pulse amplifier at 2.08 μm emitting 383-fs pulses at 10 nJ and 7 MHz

An all-polarization maintaining (PM) fiber chirped pulse amplifier system at 2.08 μm based on thulium:holmium codoped gain fibers is reported. An inhouse built oscillator emits pulses at a repetition rate of 7 MHz with a spectral full width at half-maximum (FWHM) bandwidth of 23.5 nm at 2.8 mW average output power. The pulses are temporally stretched and subsequently amplified in a double-stage amplifier setup. The stretched pulses are compressed to 383 fs by use of a Martinez-style setup at an output pulse energy of 10.2 nJ. By neglecting temporal stretching, high peak powers in a single amplifier stage led to Raman soliton formation at 2.3 μm.