Fabian Stutzki

We present efficient, ultrabroadband intrapulse difference-frequency generation driven by a Tm-doped fiber laser resulting in an average mid-infrared output power of 450 mW spanning more than one octave (−10 dB width) at a central wavelength of 12 µm.

The large-pitch fiber design and its fundamental operating principle – the delocalization of higher-order modes – have enabled the current performance records of ultrashort-pulse fiber laser systems. However, further average power scaling is limited by transverse mode instabilities. This effect has been linked to the average thermal load inside the active fiber and, consequently, it is strongly enhanced for short fiber amplifiers that are typically used for ultrashort-pulse amplification. Recently, it has also been discovered that photo-darkening is an additional, very important heat source in an active fiber that can be as strong as the quantum defect. A reduction of the Yb-doping concentration in high-power active fibers is a promising way to mitigate this problem. In this contribution we propose a new large-pitch design which has an increased delocalization of higher-order modes and, at the same time, allows for a larger core to clad ratio that enables reducing the Yb-ion concentration while maintaining a similar amplification efficiency. A comprehensive laser simulation that includes modal properties, thermo-optical effects and photo-darkening is used to highlight the important benefits of this design. Additionally, this novel and compact fiber design can be a promising unit-cell for a multi-core fiber, which should ultimately enable the development of multi-kW average power and multi-mJ pulse energy ultrashort-pulse fiber lasers in the near future. © (2016) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

Complementing ultrafast thulium-doped fiber-laser systems with a subsequent nonlinear pulse compression stage can enable unique laser parameters at around 2 μm operation wavelength. Significant pulse shortening and peak power enhancement have been accomplished using a fused silica solid-core fiber. In this fiber a pulse peak power of 24 MW was achieved without catastrophic damage due to self-focusing. As compared to operation in the well-explored 1 μm wavelength region, increasing the emission wavelength to 2 μm has a twofold advantage for nonlinear compression in fused-silica solid-core fibers. This is because, on the one hand the self-focusing limit scales quadratically with the wavelength. On the other hand the dispersion properties of fused silica allow for self-compression of ultrashort pulses beyond 1.3 μm wavelength, which leads to strong spectral broadening from very compact setups without the need for external compression. Using this technique we have generated 1.1 μJpulses with 24 fs FWHM pulse duration (<4 optical cycles), 24 MW peak power and 24.6 W of average power. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest average power obtained from any nonlinear compression experiment around 2 μm wavelength and the first demonstration of peak powers beyond 20 MW within a fused-silica solid-core fiber. This result emphasizes that thulium-doped fiber-based chirped-pulse amplification systems may outperform their ytterbiumdoped counterparts in terms of peak power due to the fourfold increase of the critical power of self-focusing

Tm-based fiber-laser systems are an attractive concept for the development of high-performance laser sources in the spectral region around 2 μm wavelength. Here we present a system delivering a pulse-peak power higher than 200 MW in combination with 24 W average power and 120 μJ pulse energy. Key components enabling this performance level are a Tm-doped large-pitch fiber with a mode-field diameter of 65 μm, highly efficient dielectric gratings, and a Tm-based fiber oscillator operating in the stretched-pulse regime.

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A high-power thulium (Tm)-doped fiber chirped-pulse amplification system emitting a record compressed average output power of 152 W and 4 MW peak power is demonstrated. This result is enabled by utilizing Tm-doped photonic crystal fibers with mode-field diameters of 35 μm, which mitigate detrimental nonlinearities, exhibit slope efficiencies of more than 50%, and allow for reaching a pump-power-limited average output power of 241 W. The high-compression efficiency has been achieved by using multilayer dielectric gratings with diffraction efficiencies higher than 98%.

Spatially and spectrally resolved imaging (S2) is a very sensitive, robust and elegant method to measure the power of excited modes in a fiber. For the common reconstruction technique an approximation is necessary, which is based on dominant fundamental mode content. In this work we present several algorithms that significantly improve the accuracy of modal reconstruction for weak excited fundamental mode content. We show that in some cases general analytical solutions exist that can completely overcome the former limitation. In addition, we introduce an iterative procedure to improve the mode modal reconstruction independent of the specific used algorithm.

A high-speed mode analysis technique is required to gain fundamental understanding of mode instabilities in high-power fiber laser systems. In this work a technique, purely based on the intensity profile of the beam, is demonstrated to be ideally suited to analyze fiber laser dynamics. This technique, together with a high-speed camera, has been applied to the study of the temporal dynamics of mode instabilities at high average powers with up to 20,000 frames per second. These measurements confirm that energy transfer between the fluctuating transversal modes takes place in millisecond-time-scale.

Photonic-Crystal Fibers (PCF) are among the most promising concepts to achieve large mode field areas suitable for the reduction of nonlinearities in fibers. Differential mode propagation loss is the cornerstone of effective single-mode behavior in passive and core-pumped active PCFs. In this work, we explore non-hexagonal PCF designs with increased mode discrimination in comparison to the classical hexagonal PCF designs. It is shown that a pentagonal design can increase the mode discrimination and, simultaneously, also improve the beam quality of Large-Pitch Fibers with mode field diameters well beyond 100 µm.