High-power gain-switched Tm^3+-doped fiber laser

Abstract

Gain-switched by a 1.914-µm Tm:YLF crystal laser, a two-stage Tm(3+) fiber laser has been achieved 100-W level ~2-µm pulsed laser output with a slope efficiency of ~52%. With the 6-m length of Tm fiber, the laser wavelength was centered at 2020 nm with a bandwidth of ~25 nm. Based on an acousto-optic switch, the pulse repetition rate can be modulated from 500 Hz to 50 kHz, and the laser pulse width can be tuned between 75 ns and ~1 µs. The maximum pulse energy was over 10 mJ, and the maximum pulse peak power was 138 kW. By using the fiber-coiling-induced mode-filtering effect, laser beam quality of M2 = 1.01 was obtained. Further scaling the pulse energy and average power from such kind of gain-switched fiber lasers was also discussed.