High power, tunable hybrid fiber/bulk laser at 1030 nm and parametric frequency conversion in the near and mid-infrared

Abstract

We report on a high power, wavelength-agile, hybrid fiber-bulk laser, emitting up to 3.5 mJ 15 ns pulses at 1030 nm at 5 kHz repetition rate. This hybrid laser is composed of a commercial seed single-frequency fiber laser, tunable over several GHz, amplified in a dual-stage single-mode Ytterbium doped fiber amplifier, followed by two Yb:YAG solid crystal amplifiers. To illustrate the potential of such an architecture for future differential absorption lidar emitters, this hybrid source was used to pump an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) seeded by the idler at 3 \(\upmu\)m generated by a fixed nested cavity optical parametric oscillator (NesCOPO). The wavelength agility of the pump is transferred to the OPA signal beam to reach a fine tunability in the 1.5 \(\upmu\)m region. This fine tuning was used to measure the transmission spectrum of an acetylene gas cell.