With their advantages like good beam quality, easy thermal management, high robustness and compact size, fiber lasers are one of the most promising solid state laser concepts for high power scaling with excellent beam quality. One issue of further power scaling is the reduction of nonlinear effects, especially Raman scattering, which consequently led to increased mode field areas. However, for large mode area fibers, new challenges, namely transversal mode instabilities (TMI) have to be taken into account. Beside our investigations in the power scaling of ytterbium doped fiber amplifiers up to 4.4kW output power, we present our investigations of the TMI threshold in dependence on bend diameter and absorption length of a well-known, commercial fiber. Within this scope, we used a 13m piece of the fiber and gradually reduced the bend diameter from 60cm slightly below 14cm within a pump wavelength of 976nm. Furthermore, we increased the fiber length to 30 m, presuming the bend diameter of 14 cm and all experimental conditions. However, in a next step, we detuned the pump wavelength up to 980 nm in order to increase the pump absorption length As a result, we achieved 2.9kW of single mode output at a bend diameter of 14cm. The 4.4kW result was obtained with a separately manufactured low-NA fiber, allowing for a slope efficiency of 90% with regards to the absorbed pump light and an extremely temporal stability.
We present the fabrication and properties of active fiber laser materials fabricated by a newly developed solution doping technique. The contribution focusses on Aluminum, Phosphorus, Ytterbium as well as Boron doped SiO2 for the use as fiber laser material. More specifically low doping concentration in the vicinity of the molar ratio of Al2O3:P2O5 = 1:1 will be elucidated. The effect of fabrication parameters on optical properties like refractive index, absorption and emission properties will be covered. Currently it is possible to achieve cw output powers greater than 4 kW using Al, P, Yb doped fibers fabricated with this method. Fibers additionally codoped with Boron are as well suitable for kW class applications as well.
KEYWORDS: Fiber amplifiers, Solid state lasers, Single mode fibers, Manufacturing, Fabrication, Doping, Step index fibers, High power fiber amplifiers, Amplifiers, Fiber lasers
Fiber amplifiers are representing one of the most promising solid state laser concepts, due to the compact setup size, a simple thermal management and furthermore excellent beam quality. In this contribution, we report on the latest results from a low-NA, large mode area single mode fiber with a single mode output power beyond 4 kW without any indication of mode instabilities or nonlinear effects and high slope efficiency. Furthermore, we quantify the influence of the bending diameter of our manufactured low NA fiber on the average core loss by an OFDR measurement and determine the optimal bending diameter in comparison to a second fiber with a slightly changed NA. The fibers used in the experiments were fabricated by MCVD technology combined with the solution doping technique. The investigation indicates the limitation of the step index fiber design and its influence on the use in high power fiber amplifiers. We demonstrate, that even a slightly change in the core NA crucially influences the minimum bending diameter of the fiber and has to be taken into account in applications. The measured output power represents to the best of our knowledge the highest single mode output power of an amplifier fiber ever reported on.
We report on the measurement of the longitudinal temperature distribution in a fiber amplifier fiber during high power operation. The measurement signal of an optical frequency domain reflectometer is coupled to an ytterbium doped amplifier fiber via a wavelength division multiplexer. The longitudinal temperature distribution was examined for different pump powers with a sub mm resolution. The results show even small temperature variations induced by slight changes of the environmental conditions along the fiber. The mode instability threshold of the fiber under investigation was determined to be 480W and temperatures could be measured overall the measured output power values.
KEYWORDS: Thulium, Fiber amplifiers, Temperature metrology, Fiber lasers, Optical amplifiers, High power fiber amplifiers, High power fiber lasers, Backscatter, Fiber coatings, Absorption, Calibration, Reflectometry
We present measurements of the temperature increase inside the active fiber of a thulium fiber amplifier during high power operation. At a pump power of over 100 W at a wavelength of 793 nm, we measure the core temperature distribution along the first section of a large mode area (LMA) highly thulium doped active fiber by use of an optical backscatter reflectometer. A mode field adaptor is used to maintain single mode operation in the LMA fiber. An increase in temperature of over 100 K can be observed in spite of conductive cooling, located at the pumped fiber end and jeopardizing the fiber coating. The recoated splice can be clearly identified as the hottest fiber region. This allows us to estimate the maximum thermally acceptable pump power for this amplifier. We also observe that the temperature can be decreased by increasing the seed power, which is in agreement with theoretical predictions on the increase of cross relaxation efficiency by depletion of the upper laser level. This underlines the role of power scaling of the respective seed power of a thulium amplifier stage as a means of thermal management.
We demonstrate a quasi-continuous wave laser amplifier with a peak output power of 6.8 kW pumped by an industrial thin-disk laser. A high slope efficiency of 84 % has been obtained within a duty cycle of 10 % at a signal wavelength of 1071 nm. For cw-pumping we measured a maximum output power of 985W. The amplifier fiber had a step index profile with a core diameter of 45μm and a pump core diameter of 120μm. A signal to ASE peak ratio of 48 dB could be determined.
In this contribution we demonstrate a single mode continuous wave laser amplifier with 146 W of power at a wavelength of 1009 nm. On one hand this experiments constitutes an extension of the wavelength range of high power fiber lasers, furthermore, emission wavelength well below 1030 nm find use for efficient high-brightness tandem pumping of high power fiber amplifiers. The wavelength and bandwidth of the seed oscillator are defined by a pair of fiber Bragg gratings. This seed is amplified in a two-stage Ytterbium-doped rod-type amplifier to 146 W with a high slope efficiency of 64 %, an excellent beam quality and an ASE-suppression as high as 63 dB.
Scaling of the power yield of offshore wind farms relies on the capacity of the individual wind turbines. This results in a trend to very large rotor diameters, which are difficult to control. It is crucial to monitor the inhomogeneous wind field in front of the wind turbines at different distances to ensure reliable operation and a long lifetime at high output levels. In this contribution, we demonstrate an all-fiber ns-pulsed fiber amplifier based on cost-efficient commercially available components. The amplifier is a suitable source for coherent Doppler lidar pulses making a predictive control of the turbine operation feasible.
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