Abstract

We report watt-level mid-IR Dy $^{3+}$ - and Er $^{3+}$ -doped all-fiber lasers using highly resistant dielectric-coated fiber mirrors. The fiber pigtail mirror is specifically designed for dichroic operation (i.e. anti-reflection at 970–1200 nm pump wavelength and high-reflection around 3 $\mu$ m laser wavelength), and shows a high damage density of >5 MW/cm $^{2}$ , which is favorable to high-power mid-IR laser operation. The Ta ${_{2}}$ O ${_{5}}$ monolayer protective film coated on ZBLAN fiber end-facet was used to mitigate the fiber tip photodegradation. Both of the compact all-fiber mid-IR cavities are formed by efficiently connecting the Dy $^{3+}$ - and Er $^{3+}$ -doped ZBLAN gain fibers with dielectric-coated fiber mirrors using the standard FC/PC fiber adaptor, respectively. An Er $^{3+}$ : ZBLAN all-fiber laser at $\sim$ 2.80 $\mu$ m is achieved with a 5.697 W maximum output power and a slope efficiency of 32.4 $\%$ . Moreover, we realize a $\sim$ 2.93 $\mu$ m Dy $^{3+}$ : ZBLAN all-fiber laser with the maximum output power of 1.148 W and a slope efficiency of 18 $\%$ , which is the highest output power of 1.1 $\mu$ m-pumped Dy $^{3+}$ : ZBLAN fiber laser. This work may offer a promising way to the low-cost, miniaturized, high-power mid-infrared all-fiber laser.

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