Development of a 2 μm Tm-doped fiber laser for hyperspectral absorption spectroscopy applications

Abstract

The hyperspectral absorption spectroscopy is attracting more and more attention as this technique enables continuous wavelength sweep over a whole absorption band, rather than one or several discrete absorption lines. Owing to the H2O possesses much stronger and more abundant absorption lines in the 2μm region, this work develop a widely tunable, narrow linewidth Tm-doped fiber laser around 1.87μm for the application of combustion diagnostics. The laser wavelength tuning range is designed from 1850 nm to 1890 nm to overlap the strong absorption band of H2O, and the laser linewidth is further narrowed to 0.04 nm by a fiber saturable absorber. With this laser system, demonstration experiments are implemented for the continuous detection of H2O absorption lines. Detailed absorption peaks of H2O from 1866 nm to 1879 nm are detected and well-resolved. The measured absorption spectrum agree well with the theoretical computation derived from HITRAN2012 database quantitatively, verifying this laser system ready for hyperspectral absorption applications.