0.82 um 105 W diode-pumped thulium-doped all silica fiber laser

Abstract: An all-silica-fiber thulium-doped fiber laser emitting at 0.82 um on the transition from 3H4 to the ground state 3H6 outputs 105 W continuous-wave (CW) power and 555 W quasi-continuous-wave (QCW) instantaneous power with 0.96% duty cycle in 240-us rectangular pulses. The TDFL comprises a double-clad thulium-doped fiber (TDF) which is designed and fabricated in-house and is incorporated into an all-fiber cavity and cladding-pumped by five pigtailed diode lasers at 0.79 um. Co-lasing at 1.9 um counteracts population trapping in 3F4. The slope efficiency relative to absorbed pump power reaches 64% QCW and 77.5% CW. QCW, the beam quality M2 becomes 2.2 (beam parameter product BPP 0.57 mm mrad) and 2.45 (BPP 0.64) in orthogonal directions at ~250 W of instantaneous output power. Additionally, a modified QCW setup is continuously wavelength-tunable from 812 nm to 835 nm. We believe this is the first reported demonstration of high-power laser operation of the 3H4 to 3H6 transition in a TDF. Given also the simplicity and other attractions of an all-silica-fiber laser with direct-diode cladding-pumping, we believe our demonstration is valuable for applications ranging from laser machining of aluminum (benefitting from an absorption peak at 0.83 um) to scientific applications including strontium-based atomic clocks and cesium-based quantum metrology.