Nanosecond pulse passively Q-switched Yb-doped fiber laser with Cr4+: YAG as saturable absorber

Abstract

We report a passively Q-switched Yb-doped fiber laser with Cr4+:YAG saturable absorber and get stable nanosecond pulse trains. Three kinds of laser cavity configurations, including a cladding-pumped ring cavity, a cladding-pumped linear cavity and a core-pumped linear cavity were studied, and they all can effectively restrain the generation of Stimulated Brillouin scattering and the generation of self-pulse. Cladding-pumped ring-avity fiber laser with Cr4+:YAG as saturable absorber inside is established for the first time to obtain stable 1 μs pulse trains. The amplitude fluctuation and timing jitter are below 5% (rms). Further more, we can also get stable pulse trains by using a high reflective fiber Bragging grating as a resonator mirror in a cladding-pumped linear cavity and a core-pumped linear cavity fiber laser respectively. In the cladding-pumped linear cavity fiber laser, the tunable pulse repetition rate is from 9.1 kHz to 30.3 kHz and the minimum pulse duration is 156 ns. And in the core-pumped linear cavity fiber laser, the tunable pulse repetition rate is from 15 kHz to 33 kHz and the minimum pulse duration is 24 ns which much less than those reported before. Although the average output power is only hundreds milli-Watts now, the laser uses a fiber coupler as the output of pulse trains, it is convinient to boost the power with a stage of fiber amplifier. This kind of pulse laser can be used as a seed source, and amplified to tens of Watts for practical applications in the future.