7 W mid-infrared supercontinuum generation up to 4.7 μm in an indium-fluoride optical fiber pumped by a high-peak power thulium-doped fiber single-oscillator.

Abstract

In this letter, a high-power supercontinuum (SC) generation is achieved in an InF3 fiber with a maximum all bands output power of 7 W and spectrum extension up to 4.7 μm. An actively Q-switched mode-locked (QML) Tm3+-doped fiber single-oscillator has been used to pump the fluoride fiber. At the average power level of 15 W, the most energetic QML pulse provided by the fiber laser had an energy of 88 μJ and an estimated peak power of 60 kW. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first experimental demonstration of a Watt-level range supercontinuum generation in an InF3 fiber pumped by a single-oscillator laser system.