Recent developments in lanthanide-doped mid-infrared fluoride fiber lasers [Invited]

Abstract

Mid-infrared fiber sources, emitting between 2.5 µm and 5.0 µm, are interesting for their great potential in several application fields such as material processing, biomedicine, remote sensing and infrared countermeasures due to their high-power, their diffraction-limited beam quality as well as their robust monolithic architecture. In this review, we will focus on the recent progress in continuous wave and pulsed mid-infrared fiber lasers and the components that bring these laser sources closer to a field deployment as well as in industrial systems. Accordingly, we will briefly illustrate the potential of such mid-infrared fiber lasers through a few selected applications.

The role of lanthanide luminescence in advancing technology

“…The use of non-linear optics, different hosts, and activators produced a plethora of available laser technologies, with emissions ranging from the VUV to the NIR. 56,57…”

Q-switched Er3+/Dy3+ codoped ZrF4 fiber laser: continuously tunable pulse generation from 3.06 to 3.62 µm

“…Continuous tuning in the range of 3.05-3.7 μm has been enabled, almost entirely covering the strong mid-IR absorption band of C-H bonds. This provides not only a promising platform for widely tunable pulse generation, but also an opportunity to accurately assess the long wavelength edges (in terms of pulse generation) of widely used commercial InAs quantum-well-based SA, which has a nominal direct bandgap of 0.36 eV (i.e., 3.444 μm) and has been frequently employed in Q-switched and mode-locked ZrF 4 fiber lasers around 3 μm [22] .…”

Grating-free 2.8 μm Er:ZBLAN fiber chirped pulse amplifier

“…High-peak-power mid-infrared (mid-IR) laser sources are attractive for many applications, such as ultrafast spectroscopy, material processing and nonlinear frequency downconversion [1][2][3][4] . A mid-IR picosecond laser with a µJ-level pulse energy can be applied to polymer processing due to the strong resonance absorption, resulting in a multifold increase in processing efficiency [5][6][7] . A high-peak-power mid-IR femtosecond laser can generate a longer-wavelength mid-IR coherent source via intra-pulse difference-frequency generation or an optical parametric oscillator [8,9] .…”