Holmium-doped 2.1 µm waveguide chip laser with an output power > 1 W.

ABSTRACT

We demonstrate the increasing applicability of compact ultra-fast laser inscribed glass guided-wave lasers and report the highest-power glass waveguide laser with over 1.1 W of output power in monolithic operation in the short-infrared near 2070 nm achieved (51% incident slope efficiency). The holmium doped ZBLAN chip laser is in-band pumped by a 1945 nm thulium fiber laser. When operated in an extended-cavity configuration, over 1 W of output power is realized in a linearly polarized beam. Broad and continuous tunability of the extended-cavity laser is demonstrated from 2004 nm to 2099 nm. Considering its excellent beam quality of M² = 1.08, this laser shows potential as a flexible master oscillator for single frequency and mode-locking applications.