Efficient Wavelength-Tunable Gain-Switching and Gain-Switched Mode-Locking Operation of a Heavily Er<sup>3+</sup>-Doped ZBLAN Mid-Infrared Fiber Laser

Yanlong Shen; Yishan Wang; Kunpeng Luan; Hongwei Chen; Mengmeng Tao; Jinhai Si

doi:10.1109/JPHOT.2017.2721998

IEEE Photonics Journal (Jan 2017)

Efficient Wavelength-Tunable Gain-Switching and Gain-Switched Mode-Locking Operation of a Heavily Er<sup>3+</sup>-Doped ZBLAN Mid-Infrared Fiber Laser

Yanlong Shen,
Yishan Wang,
Kunpeng Luan,
Hongwei Chen,
Mengmeng Tao,
Jinhai Si

Affiliations

Yanlong Shen: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China
Yishan Wang: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China
Kunpeng Luan: State Key Laboratory of Laser Interaction with Matter, Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology, Xi'an, China
Hongwei Chen: State Key Laboratory of Laser Interaction with Matter, Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology, Xi'an, China
Mengmeng Tao: State Key Laboratory of Laser Interaction with Matter, Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology, Xi'an, China
Jinhai Si: Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Photonics Technology for Information, School of Electronics and Information Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOT.2017.2721998
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 9, no. 4
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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We report on an efficient wavelength-tunable gain-switched and gain-switched mode-locked Er3+-doped double-clad fiber laser with a linear cavity. Stable gain-switching and gain-switched mode-locking were achieved with slope efficiencies of 28.6% and 34.5% with respect to launched pump power, respectively. The gain-switched laser pulses were generated with a maximum average output power of around 110 mW, pulse width of 661.2 ns, and calculated peak power of ~16.5 W at a repetition rate of 10 kHz. At the same repetition, the gain-switched mode-locked laser pulses were generated with a maximum average output power of around 514 mW, subpulse repetition rate of ~30.7 MHz, and peak power of higher than 154 W at a repetition rate of 10 kHz when the wavelength was tuned to 2.78 μm. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first demonstration of a gain-switched self-started mode-locked fiber laser near 3 μm.

Published in IEEE Photonics Journal

ISSN: 1943-0655 (Online)
Publisher: IEEE
Country of publisher: United States
LCC subjects: Technology: Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General): Applied optics. Photonics; Science: Physics: Optics. Light
Website: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=4563994

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