Partial Amplification of Octave-Spanning Supercontinuum in the Spectral Region of 1.5–2.2 μm

Abstract

Octave-spanning supercontinuum conversion in three different rare-earth doped fiber amplifiers have been investigated. Using an erbium amplifier, it turned out to increase the output power to 445 mW with a spectral width of 1250 nm. For a thulium amplifier, an average output power of 390 mW and a spectral width of 569 nm was obtained. Additionally, for holmium, the average output power was 724 mW with a spectral width of 450 nm. For all cases, the output pulses envelope did not exceed 0.72 ns.

The Dynamics of Multi-Peak Pulsed Generation in a Q-Switched Thulium-Doped Fiber Laser

“…The first thulium-doped (Tm 3+ ) silica-based fiber laser with pumping at λ p = 810 nm and generating in the spectral range of λ s = 1780-2060 nm was experimentally demonstrated in 1990 [3], and since then, these systems have been continuously improved [4][5][6]. These lasers and amplifiers are used in laser surgery [7][8][9], for pumping holmium active elements [10][11][12], as a part of measuring systems [13] and laser LIDARs [14], in scientific research and in other applications [15,16]. Thulium-doped fibers with another glass matrix or structure [17] can be used to operate in the spectral range over the 2000 nm thereby expanding the application area of these laser systems [18][19][20].…”