High-power graphene mode-locked Tm/Ho co-doped fiber laser with evanescent field interaction

• Main Authors: Li, Xiaohui, Yu, Xuechao, Sun, Zhipei, Yan, Zhiyu, Sun, Biao, Cheng, Yuanbing, Yu, Xia, Zhang, Ying, Wang, Qi Jie
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/81085; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/39062
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Mid-infrared ultrafast fiber lasers are valuable for various applications, including chemical and biomedical sensing, material processing and military applications. Here, we report all-fiber high-power graphene mode-locked Tm/Ho co-doped fiber laser at long wavelength with evanescent field interaction. Ultrafast pulses up to 7.8 MHz are generated at a center wavelength of 1879.4 nm, with a pulse width of 4.7 ps. A graphene absorber integrated with a side-polished fiber can increase the damage threshold significantly. Harmonics mode-locking can be obtained till to the 21th harmonics at a pump power of above 500 mW. By using one stage amplifier in the anomalous dispersion regime, the laser can be amplified up to 450 mW and the narrowest pulse duration of 1.4 ps can be obtained simultaneously. Our work paves the way to graphene Tm/Ho co-doped mode-locked all-fiber master oscillator power amplifiers as potentially efficient and economic laser sources for high-power laser applications, such as special material processing and nonlinear optical studies.