The influence of mode instability (MI) on polarization extinction ratio (PER) has been investigated in a 2 kW level polarization-maintained (PM) fiber laser system with backward-pumped configuration, and the phenomena is different from the existing observation in forward-pumped PM fiber amplifiers. During the experiment, with the onset of MI, none decrease of PER has been observed, revealing that the MI effect has little impact on PER in backward PM fiber amplifiers. The discrepancy induced by the pump configuration has been theoretically analyzed, and the origin is attributed to the longitudinally-distribution difference of high order mode induced by the MI effect.
In this paper, a preliminary demonstration of all-fiber coherent beam combining (CBC) with active polarization-and- phase control is proposed. The CBC system was composed of two laser channels combined with a fiber coupler. One channel utilized non-polarization-maintained (non-PM) fiber, and the state of polarization of laser was controlled by using a dynamic polarization controller (DPC). The other channel adopted polarization-maintained (PM) fiber, and the phase of laser was controlled by using a phase modulator. In the central controller, hill-climbing algorithm and stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm were applied for phase-locking and polarization-locking respectively. With this system, 82.3% of combining efficiency was demonstrated, the extinction ratio of the combined laser was 97.3% and the phase-locking efficiency reached 96.05%.
In this work, a high-power polarization-maintained fiber laser with ultra-narrow linewidth and near diffraction limited beam quality is demonstrated. The stimulated Brillouin scattering is mitigated by optimizing phase modulation scheme, the mode instability is suppressed by coiling the active fiber, and the output power reaches to 3kW at the full width at half-maximum linewidth of 10.6GHz. At maximum output power, the stimulated Raman scattering suppression ratio reaches to 75dB, the polarization extinction ratio is 96%, the beam quality M2 is 1.156, and the further scaling of output power is limited by stimulated Brillouin scattering effect. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest power for polarization-maintained fiber laser with about 10GHz linewidth ever reported so far.
We proposed a simple O-shaped cylinder all-fiber-integrated laser without inter-cladding-power-strippers (CPS) based on a quasi-bidirectional pumping scheme. The fiber grooves were inscribed on the outside of an O-shaped aluminium cylinder with both straight and curved tracks. The curved track with a diameter of 10 cm could suppress the high order modes and keep a stable beam quality with the increases of output power, while the straight parts improve the robustness for fusion points and unpackaged optical components. The simplified configuration of no CPS between the oscillator and the amplifier could also improve the total efficiency. The output power, the optical-to-optical efficiency, the beam quality, and the Raman suppression are systematically investigated. It is verified that this design introduces a practical way to simultaneously improve the transverse mode instability (TMI) and SRS thresholds in a high-power fiber laser system with a simple configuration and high efficiency.
In this paper, we report the experimental study on stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) induced mode instabilities (MI) in large mode area step-index fiber in a counter-pumped all-fiberlized amplifier. When the output power is scaled to 1560W, the ratio of SRS is 2% and the beam quality factor M2 is about 1.4. With the further scaling of output power, the SRS power begins to increase nonlinearly, and then the beam quality degrades obviously when the ratio of SRS exceeds 3%, and the M2 is about 2.1 at 1910W, that is the SRS induced MI. The phenomenon is accompanied by the temperature increasing of output passive fiber, which is caused by heat deposition of quantum defect between signal light and Raman light. The temporal dynamics of SRS induced MI is studied in detail for the first time, which are characterized by using both camera measurement and photodiode traces. The experiment results express that both the output power and output beam profile remain stable before the MI occurs, and fluctuate obviously after the onset of SRS induced MI. The temporal frequency investigation indicates that the SRS induced MI is a dynamic process with slow speed fluctuation at second level, and the Fourier spectrum of time trace is within 10Hz, and the SRS induced mode degradation is different from the Yb-gain induced MI effect.
A high power 1030 nm ytterbium-doped polarization maintained fiber laser with optimized parameters is presented in this paper. The master oscillator power amplifier system with counter-pumped amplifier is established. The output power is 900 W, along with a light-to-light efficiency of 64.2%. The amplified spontaneous emission suppression ratio of spectrum reaches to 40 dB with 3 dB linewidth of 0.14 nm. The polarization extinction ratio is 12 dB, and the beam quality factor is M2x=1.07, M2y=1.12. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of 1030 nm high power fiber laser with narrow linewidth, near linear polarization, and neardiffraction-limited beam quality
Transverse mode instability becomes the main limit for power scaling of high power fiber lasers with nearly diffraction-limited beam. Compared to conventional step index fiber, this paper proposes a partially doped fiber, which can decrease coupling coefficient between fundamental mode and higher order mode. Based on a coupled mode model, this designed fiber is proved to suppress transverse mode instability effect and promising for power scaling of fiber lasers. Furthermore, we investigate the impact of doped region on transverse mode instability threshold, and propose a partially doped fiber, which can realize 5 kW in single mode regime theoretically.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.