Power scalable >25 W supercontinuum laser from 2 to 25 μm with near-diffraction-limited beam and low output variability

Abstract

A power scalable thulium-doped fiber-amplifier-based supercontinuum (SC) laser covering the shortwave infrared region from 2 to 2.5 μm is demonstrated. The SC laser has an average power up to 25.7 W and a spectral density of >12 dBm/nm. Power scalability of the laser is proven by showing that the SC laser maintains a nearly constant spectral output, beam quality (M(2) measurements), and output spectral stability as the SC average power is scaled from 5 to 25.7 W average output power. We verify that the SC laser beam is nearly diffraction limited with an M(2)<1.2 for all power levels. Output spectral stability measurements with power scaling show a radiometric variability of <0.8% across the entire SC spectrum.