RESUMEN
A monolithic fiber chirped pulse amplification system that generates sub-500 fs pulses with 913 µJ pulse energy and 4.4 W average power at 1.55 µm wavelength has recently been demonstrated. The estimated peak power for the system output approached 1.9 GW. The pulses were near diffraction-limited and near transform-limited, benefiting from the straight and short length of the booster amplifier as well as adaptive phase shaping for the overall mitigation of the nonlinear phase accumulation. The booster amplifier employs an Er(3+)-doped large mode area high efficiency media fiber just 28 cm in length with a fundamental mode (LP(01)) diameter of 54 µm and a corresponding effective mode area of 2290 µm(2).
RESUMEN
A novel monolithic fiber-optic chirped pulse amplification (CPA) system for high energy, femtosecond pulse generation is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. By employing a high gain amplifier comprising merely 20 cm of high efficiency media (HEM) gain fiber, an optimal balance of output pulse energy, optical efficiency, and B-integral is achieved. The HEM amplifier is fabricated from erbium-doped phosphate glass fiber and yields gain of 1.443 dB/cm with slope efficiency >45%. We experimentally demonstrate near diffraction-limited beam quality and near transform-limited femtosecond pulse quality at 1.55 µm wavelength. With pulse energy >100 µJ and pulse duration of 636 fs (FWHM), the peak power is estimated to be ~160 MW. NAVAIR Public Release Distribution Statement A-"Approved for Public release; distribution is unlimited".