Abstract
A wavelength-swept thulium-doped fiber laser system employing two parallel cavities with two different fiber gain stages is reported. The fiber gain stages were tailored to provide emission in complementary bands with external wavelength-dependent feedback cavities sharing a common rotating polygon mirror for wavelength scanning. The wavelength-swept laser outputs from the fiber gain elements were spectrally combined by means of a dichroic mirror and yielded over 500 mW of output with a scanning range from ~1740 nm to ~2070 nm for a scanning frequency of ~340 Hz.
Highlights
Over the last decade, two-micron fiber lasers have attracted considerable attention owing to a wealth of applications
The wavelength-swept laser outputs from the fiber gain elements were spectrally combined by means of a dichroic mirror and yielded over 500 mW of output with a scanning range from ~1740 nm to ~2070 nm for a scanning frequency of ~340 Hz
This source should benefit a range of applications where broad tuning bandwidth and high spectral power density in the two-micron band are required
Summary
Two-micron fiber lasers have attracted considerable attention owing to a wealth of applications. The fiber geometry allows relatively simple thermal management and provides a high degree of immunity from the deleterious effects of thermal loading These features have allowed power scaling of cladding-pumped Tm-doped fiber lasers to the kW regime [3]. The use of OCT for non-invasive investigation of paintings to provide the information necessary for effective restoration and to aid conservation, art history and archaeology is one emerging application where operation in the longer wavelength band around ~2 μm brings the advantage of increased penetration depth due to reduced scattering for typical artists’ pigments [6]. Tunable Filter [7] and a feedback cavity containing a diffraction grating and rotating slotteddisk [8] were reported Both configurations employed a single Tm fiber gain element and had scanning ranges of 200 nm or less. To the best of our knowledge, this is the widest wavelength sweeping range reported to date for a wavelength-swept Tm fiber laser or any fiber laser
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