Toward Watt-level optical parametric amplification in the molecular fingerprint region driven by a high repetition rate thulium-doped fiber laser

Heuermann T, Gebhardt M, Wang Z, Gaida C, Maes F, Misas CJ, Limpert J (2019)

Publication Type: Conference contribution

Publication year: 2019

Journal

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

Publisher: SPIE

Book Volume: 11370

Pages Range: 423-426

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

Event location: Bol, HRV

ISBN: 9781510635128

Abstract

Tm-doped fiber lasers operating at 2 µm wavelength have a huge potential to serve as a power scalable pump source for the conversion of radiation into wavelength regions hardly accessible by mature 1µm drivers. Converting the radiation towards the mid infrared region is interesting for applications in today’s life sciences as many important molecules feature numerous absorption lines in this so called mid infrared fingerprint region. Only non-oxide crystals offer a transmission band beyond 5 µm, but at the cost of a small bandgap. This renders them unsuitable for short wavelength drivers. Therefore, increasing the driving laser wavelength is inevitable for efficient average power scaling towards this wavelength region. In this contribution we present efficient optical parametric amplification of mid-infrared radiation in the wavelength region beyond 5µm driven by a Tm doped fiber laser at 2µm wavelength. In a first proof of principle demonstration 9 W of pump power at 200 kHz repetition rate and 270 fs of pulse duration were used to pump a 2mm GaSe crystal. Here, 360 mW of mid IR power are generated, corresponding to 4.3% of conversion efficiency with a spectrum spanning from 7.2 µm to 8.2 µm (-10 dB width). In a next step the full laser power will be utilized. Assuming a similar conversion efficiency, 1.6 W of average idler power can be expected. By further optimizing the seed and the bandwidth, multi-watt octave spanning idler beams can be expected from this scheme in the future.

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., Misas, C.J., & Limpert, J. (2019). Toward Watt-level optical parametric amplification in the molecular fingerprint region driven by a high repetition rate thulium-doped fiber laser. In Igor Jovanovic, Bojan Resan, Karoly Osvay, Giacomo Coslovich (Eds.), Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering (pp. 423-426). Bol, HRV: SPIE.

MLA:

Heuermann, Tobias, et al. "Toward Watt-level optical parametric amplification in the molecular fingerprint region driven by a high repetition rate thulium-doped fiber laser." Proceedings of the Ultrafast Optics XII 2019, Bol, HRV Ed. Igor Jovanovic, Bojan Resan, Karoly Osvay, Giacomo Coslovich, SPIE, 2019. 423-426.

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