Amplification of 1.08 GHz repetition rate femtosecond laser pulses to 97 W average power by a fiber amplifier

Yan Wang,Franz Kaertner,Zhigang Zhang,Yizhou Liu

doi:10.1364/osac.423499

Abstract

We demonstrate a femtosecond Yb:fiber laser amplification system which delivers 97 W average output power at a repetition rate of 1.08 GHz using a rod-type photonic crystal fiber. The re-compressed output pulse is 233 fs. Numerical simulation was also conducted in agreement with our experimental results.

Highlights

High-repetition-rate femtosecond fiber lasers have attracted lots of interests due to its large longitude-mode spacing and high longitude-mode power, which is very important for multiple applications, such as optical frequency combs [1,2,3], coherent optical communication [4], photonics-based radar system [5], and nonlinear bio-imaging [6]
In cavity-enhanced high harmonic generation, high power GHz repetition rate laser pulses are required in achieving high signal to noise ratio (SNR) and small foot print
We modeled the process of pulses in an Yb-doped fiber amplifier (YDFA) by the combination of two sets of equations, which are the rate equations and the generalized Schrödinger equation (GNLSE) utilizing the split-step Fourier method [19,20,21,22]

Summary

Introduction

High-repetition-rate femtosecond fiber lasers have attracted lots of interests due to its large longitude-mode spacing and high longitude-mode power, which is very important for multiple applications, such as optical frequency combs [1,2,3], coherent optical communication [4], photonics-based radar system [5], and nonlinear bio-imaging [6]. Amplified GHz-level repetition rate femtosecond pulses can be applied for multiple state-of-the-art scientific applications, such as GHz intra-bust repetition rate micromachining [7,8,9], coherent optical pulse stacking [10,11], and cavity-enhanced high harmonic generation [12,13]. In cavity-enhanced high harmonic generation, high power GHz repetition rate laser pulses are required in achieving high signal to noise ratio (SNR) and small foot print. In order to achieve femtosecond pulses, they have to take nonlinear amplification process to compress the pulse. We demonstrate a 100 W level amplification of a 1.08 GHz repetition rate femtosecond fiber laser in a standard three-stage chirped pulse amplification system.

Experiment arrangement

Experiment results

Discussion and perspective

Conclusions