230-kW peak power femtosecond pulses from a high power tunable source based on amplification in Tm-doped fiber

Abstract

We report for the first time an all-fiber laser system that generates tunable Watt-level femtosecond pulses at around 2 μm without an external pulse compressor. The system is based on amplification of a Raman shifted Er-doped fiber laser in a Tm-doped 25-μm-core fiber. We obtain 108-fs pulses at 1980 nm with an average power of 3.1 W and a pulse energy of 31 nJ. The peak power at the output of the amplifier is estimated as ~230 kW, which to the best of our knowledge is the highest peak power obtained from a femtosecond or a few-picosecond amplifier based on any doped fiber. The amplified output is frequency-doubled to produce 78-fs pulses at 990 nm with an average power of 1.5 W and a pulse energy of 15 nJ. We demonstrate broad wavelength tunability around 2 μm as well as around 1 μm.