Picosecond Yb-doped tapered fiber laser system with 1.26 MW peak power and 200 W average output power

Abstract

We demonstrate a compact picosecond master-oscillator power-amplifier (MOPA) system based on an Yb-doped polarization-maintaining double-clad tapered fiber (T-DCF) delivering pulses with over 1.26 MW peak power and average output power up to 200 W preserving near diffraction limited beam quality. The unique properties of an active tapered fiber enable to amplify the seed pulses directly with no need for applying of additional stretching technique. This simplified laser system can find the practical implementation in industrial micromachining.

High‐Power Laser Systems

“…[425] Petrov et al reported a compact ps MOPA system that can yield 1.26 MW peak power and 200 W average power while preserving good beam quality. [409] In addition to the long tapered type, a local adiabatic taper has also been utilized to achieve 2 MW peak power with a neardiffraction-limited beam quality of M 2 = 1.3, an inspiring record for ps amplifiers. [412] The taper strategy also makes sub-MW peak power with mJ-level pulse energy possible for ns lasers.…”

“…Tapered fiber opens a new way for high‐power fiber amplifiers. At present, it has been adopted in kW‐level all‐fiber resonators, [ 410 ] MOPA amplifiers, [ 411 ] MW‐level CPA‐free amplification, [ 409,412 ] and high‐power single‐frequency (SF) laser output. [ 413,414 ]…”

Tapered Multicore Fiber for High-Power Laser Amplifiers

“…The possibility of creating a completely monolithic amplifier and laser with a fiberized injection of pump radiation into the tapered fiber is demonstrated [18]. Peak powers of a megawatt level are demonstrated [14], [15], [16], [17], which are comparable in order of magnitude with the self-focusing limit in silica. At this, up to several tens of MW after compression is shown [15], [19] when using chirped pulse amplification.…”

“…A specific feature of tapered fibers is the relative simplicity of the structure of their cores (in fact, the step-index profile can be used) and the possibility of a completely monolithic structure, as well as the simplicity of implementing a structure with a double cladding for injection of pump radiation [9]. High-power laser systems of the kilowatt level [10] with good beam quality [11], [12], high energy Q-switched pulsed lasers [13] and ultrashort pulse amplifiers [14], [15], [16], [17] are demonstrated using tapered fibers. The possibility of creating a completely monolithic amplifier and laser with a fiberized injection of pump radiation into the tapered fiber is demonstrated [18].…”

Towards Ultimate High-Power Scaling: Coherent Beam Combining of Fiber Lasers

“…There are several reports on utilizing T-DCFs to simultaneously achieve the high peak and average power pulses in picosecond ranges with excellent beam quality, which have resulted in a few hundred watts in average power and megawatts level in peak power via T-DCF [222]. For example, in 2020, a laser with the 1.26 MW peak power and 200 W average output power was obtained via implementing the T-DCF, without the need for additional stretching techniques [223]. These representatives indicate that T-DCFs have great potential for high power amplification of the laser beams with maintaining the beam quality, which made them an ideal gain medium for powerful CBC systems [224].…”