Efficient, polarised, gain-switched operation of a Tm-doped fibre laser

Abstract

We present a monolithic, robustly polarised thulium fibre laser which produces pulses with 25 ns duration and energy of up to 35 µJ. A pulsed 1.55 μm source was used to gain switch the laser at repetition rates of up to 300 kHz, producing average powers of up to 8 W at 2.044 µm. To the best of our knowledge this is the highest power gain-switched thulium fibre laser and it is also the first with a linearly polarised output. The large repetition rate, pulse energy and average power will enable efficient energy extraction from a large mode-area, polarisation maintaining thulium fibre amplifier.