Watt-class optical parametric amplification driven by a thulium doped fiber laser in the molecular fingerprint region

Heuermann T, Gebhardt M, Wang Z, Gaida C, Maes F, Jauregui C, Limpert J (2020)

Publication Type: Conference contribution

Publication year: 2020

Journal

Proceedings of SPIE Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)

Publisher: SPIE

Book Volume: 11260

Conference Proceedings Title: Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering

Event location: San Francisco, CA, USA

ISBN: 9781510632837

DOI: 10.1117/12.2546203

Abstract

Numerous molecules important for environmental and life sciences feature strong absorption bands in the molecular fingerprint region from 3 μm-20 μm. While mature drivers at 1 μm wavelength are the workhorse for the generation of radiation up to 5 μm (utilizing down-conversion in nonlinear crystals) they struggle to directly produce radiation beyond this limit, due to impeding nonlinear absorption in non-oxide crystals. Since only non-oxide crystals provide transmission in the whole molecular fingerprint region, a shift to longer driving wavelengths is necessary for a power scalable direct conversion of radiation into the wavelength region beyond 5 μm. In this contribution, we present a high-power single-stage optical parametric amplifier driven by a state of the art 2 μm wavelength, thulium-doped fiber chirped pulse amplifier. In this experiment, the laser system provided 23 W at 417 kHz repetition rate with 270 fs pulse duration to the parametric amplifier. The seed signal is produced by supercontinuum generation in 3 mm of sapphire and pre-chirped with 3 mm of germanium. Combining this signal with the pump radiation and focusing it into a 2 mm thick GaSe crystal with a pump intensity of 160 GW/cm2 lead to an average idler power of 700 mW with a spectrum spanning from 9 μm-12 μm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest average power reported from a parametric amplifier directly driven by a 2 μm ultrafast laser in the wavelength region beyond 5 μm. Employing common multi-stage designs, this approach might in the future enable multi-watt high-power parametric amplification in the long wavelength mid infrared.

Involved external institutions

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena DE Germany (DE) Active Fiber Systems (AFS) DE Germany (DE) Université Laval (UL) CA Canada (CA)

How to cite

APA:

Heuermann, T., Gebhardt, M., Wang, Z., Gaida, C., Maes, F., Jauregui, C., & Limpert, J. (2020). Watt-class optical parametric amplification driven by a thulium doped fiber laser in the molecular fingerprint region. In Liang Dong (Eds.), Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering. San Francisco, CA, USA: SPIE.

MLA:

Heuermann, Tobias, et al. "Watt-class optical parametric amplification driven by a thulium doped fiber laser in the molecular fingerprint region." Proceedings of the Fiber Lasers XVII: Technology and Systems 2020, San Francisco, CA, USA Ed. Liang Dong, SPIE, 2020.

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