Fabrication of Fiber Bragg Gratings by Visible Femtosecond Laser for Multi-kW Fiber Oscillator

Abstract

In this paper, we fabricate a pair of fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) in large mode area double cladding fiber (LMA-DCF, core/inner cladding diameter: 20/400 μm) by visible (515 nm) femtosecond laser and phase mask for the first time to the best of our knowledge. Then this pair of FBGs are utilized to construct a high power fiber oscillator operated near 1080 nm. The maximum output laser power is more than 3.2 kW with a slope efficiency of ∼77.9%, and the beam quality factor M2 is about 1.28. The FBGs are simply fixed on water-cooling plate without any special package, and the temperature of the FBGs is about 40 °C at the maximum output power. Our research work confirms the reliability of visible femtosecond laser in fabrication of FBGs intended to be applied in high power fiber oscillators.

Keywords

• Fiber Bragg grating
• femtosecond laser
• oscillator