High-Power, Efficient, Diode-Pumped Fiber Lasers for Air Force Applications

摘要

The UNM portion of this program focused on two areas, namely: (1) Efficient, wavelength-switchable fiber lasers for Air Force applications; (2) The development of mid-IR sources, namely 3 micrometers fiber lasers for pumping longer wavelength sources for IRCM applications. More specifically, we developed and/or demonstrated: (1) A precisely and rapidly wavelength-switchable 1.5 micrometers fiber laser source with switching times of (caret)18 microseconds; (2) A widely tunable wavelength-selectable fiber laser for 8 channels using an FBG string for channel pinning with output powers of each channel of (caret)l2 dBm(16 mW); (3) A broadly tunable wavelength-selectable source using a fiber Sagnac loop filter, with over 25 wavelength-switchable channel outputs with precise 50 GHz channel spacing, excellent output power uniformities of +/- 0.8 dB over the whole tuning range, and very large (65 dB)side mode suppression ratios; (4) A single-mode tunable wavelength selectable fiber laser operating at 8 uniquely selectable wavelength-channels with individual linewidths of < 300 kHz in each channel 5. That the optimal pump wavelength for 'the 800 nm pump band' pumping of high-power 3 micrometers mid-IR fiber laser is 799 +/- 1 nm (as opposed to earlier reports implying an optimal pump wavelength of 791 nm); (6) Optimal designs for custom double-clad Er:ZBLAN fibers for power scaling of such mid-IR lasers to average powers of > 10 Watts 7. Compact diode-pumped Q-switched (both actively and passively) mid-IR fiber lasers.