Abstract

Laser systems based on double-clad rare-earth doped fibers are an attractive technology for compact and very efficient high-power and high- energy short pulse generation. Their main performance advantages compared to conventional bulk solid-state lasers result from the combination of beam confinement and excellent heat dissipation. The amplification of nanosecond pulses in fibers is limited by the extractable energy, which is determined by the saturation fluence, the small signal gain and the area of the active medium. Ytterbium doped glass possesses a huge saturation fluence of about 30 J/cm². 7.7 mj pulses from a multimode Q-switched ytterbium-doped fiber laser at low repetition rates (500 Hz) are reported.¹ In this contribution we report for the first time to our knowledge on a multi milli-joule system with repetition rates in the 10 kHz range.

© 2002 Optical Society of America