A 158 fs 5.3 nJ fiber-laser system at 1 µm using photonic bandgap fibers for dispersion control and pulse compression

Abstract

We demonstrate a 158 fs 5.3 nJ mode-locked laser system based on a fiber oscillator, fiber amplifier and fiber compressor. Dispersion compensation in the fiber oscillator was obtained with a solid-core photonic bandgap (SC-PBG) fiber spliced to standard fibers, and external compression is obtained with a hollow-core photonic bandgap (HC-PBG) fiber.

Highly-stable monolithic femtosecond Yb-fiber laser system based on photonic crystal fibers

“…A similar arrangement to ours, but based on non-PM fibers and partly using free-space coupling, was presented in [7]. However, the stability of this laser was comparable to "that of other non-PM fiber lasers -that is the laser was not environmentally stable, and the output could be affected by moving the fibers".…”

“…The inclusion of third-order dispersion is particularly important due to the careful dispersion balancing in the cavity, and the strong third-order dispersion of the AS-PCF. The dispersion parameters for the standard PM fibers were taken to be β 2 =0.023 ps 2 /m, β 3 =3.9·10 −5 ps 3 /m [7], and the effective area was assumed to be 28 μm 2 , corresponding to an MFD of 6 μm. For the amplifier fiber, the dispersion values were taken as β 2 =0.039 ps 2 /m and β 3 =10 −5 ps 3 /m [9].…”

Hollow-core photonic bandgap fibers: technology and applications

“…ARFs also compete with HC-PBGFs in these applications, with HC-PBGFs providing advantages with regard to loss and bend loss (a particularly important feature for laser beam delivery) and with ARFs offering benefits in terms of the delivery of shorter pulses due to the inherently lower and flatter dispersion over broad bandwidths and the increased core sizes possible. Note however that in some instances the dispersion of the HC-PBGF can be used to good effect in the delivery of laser light: for example to compress linearly chirped pulses directly from an oscillator [111], within an external amplifier system [112], or as a compressor in Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA) in which the pulse is stretched by a significant factor (e.g., × 1000) prior to amplification and re-compressed thereafter in order to avoid optical nonlinearities within the amplifier [113]). Nonlinear pulse compression can also be exploited in HC-PBGs at far higher pulse energies than in solid fibres due to the far lower nonlinearities possible: either using soliton effects [114], or using self-phase modulation (SPM) and a final stage of pulse compression using bulk gratings, prisms or chirped mirrors [115].…”

All-PM Monolithic fs Yb-Fiber Laser, Dispersion-Managed with All-Solid Photonic Bandgap Fiber

“…1. A non-monolithic solution for such a laser was shown earlier in [5], using a non-PM air-silica PCF in the cavity. The Yb-fiber oscillator cavity is capped with a high-reflectivity pigtailed mirror on one end, and a butt-coupled semiconductor saturable absorption mirror (SESAM) with 24% modulation depth on the other end.…”