All-fiberized, dual-wavelength, nanosecond-pulsed ytterbium laser system

Area of Science:

• Fiber laser technology
• Nonlinear optics
• Laser engineering

Background:

• Master-oscillator power-amplifier (MOPA) systems are crucial for high-power laser generation.
• Dual-wavelength operation offers unique advantages in various applications, but achieving it efficiently can be challenging.
• Previous systems often faced limitations in flexibility and power scaling.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate a fully fiberized, dual-wavelength ytterbium-doped MOPA system.
• To investigate the trade-offs between spectral peak intensity and pulse peak power at different wavelengths.
• To showcase the system's potential for high power and wavelength reconfigurability.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing a spectrally sliced superluminescent laser diode as the seed source.
• Employing an electro-optical modulator driven by an arbitrary waveform generator for pulse shaping.
• Operating with 10-ns pulses at a 50 kHz repetition rate.

Main Results:

• Achieved pulse peak powers of 4.1 kW at 1030 nm and 9.1 kW at 1040 nm without stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) under equalized spectral peak intensity.
• Demonstrated comparable pulse peak powers of 8.6 kW and 9.9 kW under similar pulse peak power conditions, highlighting a trade-off.
• Confirmed the system's ability to operate without SBS.

Conclusions:

• The developed fiberized MOPA system successfully enables flexible dual-wavelength operation.
• The system exhibits significant power scaling potential due to its incoherent seed source.
• Simple wavelength reconfigurability is achieved through spectral slicing, making it adaptable for diverse applications.