A new transversal pumping scheme of fiber lasers based on the optimized manufacturing of an array of large scale ridge waveguides in fused silica is presented. Moreover their application as directional couplers interacting with a double clad optical active fiber for laser application is discussed. Conventional broad area emitters without slow axis collimation (SAC) can be used to couple light (wavelength λp = 976 nm) into the waveguide array.
With the advent of high power and narrow bandwidth 969 nm pump diodes, direct pumping into the upper laser
level of Yb:YAG and hence quasi-2-level lasers became possible. Pumping directly into the emitting level leads
to higher quantum efficiency and reduction of non-radiative decay. Consequently, thermal load, thermal lensing
and risk of fracture are reduced significantly. Moreover pump saturation and thermal population of uninvolved
energy-levels in ground and excited states are benefical for a homogenous distribution of the pump beam as
well as the reduction of reabsorption loss compared to 3-level systems, which allows for high-power DPSS lasers.
Beside continuous-wave (cw) operation, nanosecond pulses with a repetition rate between 1 and 5 kHz are an
attractive alternative to flashlamp-pumped systems (10-100 Hz) in various measurement applications that require
higher data acquisition rates because of new faster detectors. Based on measurements of the absorption and
a detailed numerical model for pump beam distribution, including beam propagation and saturation factors,
power-scaling of a ceramic rod Yb:YAG oscillator was possible. Finally a cw output power of 50 W with 33
% pump efficiency at 1030 nm has been demonstrated (M2 < 1.2). Nanosecond pulses have been produced by
cavity-dumping of this system. The cavity-dumped setup allowed for 3-10 ns pulses with a pulse energy of 12.5
mJ at 1 kHz (M2 < 1.1). In order to achieve these results a systematic experimental and numerical investigation
on gain dynamics and the identification of different stable operating regimes has been carried out.
We report on a Nd:YVO4 regenerative amplifier (RA), end pumped by 888 nm-diode lasers. The output power
was about 46W at repetition rates from 150 to 833kHz with an M2-factor of 1.2. The amplifier was seeded by
a gain switched diode laser, generating pulses with a duration of 65 ps and a pulse energy of ≈ 5 pJ. The high
gain of the RA of more than 70 dB provides amplified pulse energies as high as 180μJ. Bifurcations of the pulse
energy could be avoided. Pulse amplitude fluctuations of only 1.2% for 10,000 consecutive pulses were measured.
The long term output power stability of the laboratory setup was 0.3%.
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