Progress and development in fibre laser technology

Abstract

High performance fibre lasers are now well established as an extremely robust and reliable technology enabling a growing and diverse number of demanding industrial and medical and applications. Compared to rival technologies, such as carbon-dioxide (CO₂), Lamp/Diode-Pumped Solid-State (L/DPSS) and disk lasers, fibre lasers offer a number of unique characteristics that have resulted in their wide adoption in an increasing number of industrial sectors. In addition to replacing conventional lasers in existing applications, fibre lasers have been very successful in enabling new applications, both factors which explain their increasing market share. In this paper we describe the basic features of fibre lasers, and discuss their generic advantages compared with other laser technologies and consider how these may translate to defence applications. We explain our proprietary cladding-pumping technology (GTWave^TM) and the laser architectures we use to implement our commercial products. We present parametric performance data that show the vast range of pulse waveforms that can be produced and discuss some new industrial applications that they have recently enabled. Finally, we reference some of the leading research results for multi-kW continuous-wave (CW) fibre lasers and summarise SPIE's published work in this field.