Power scaling of ytterbium(3+)-doped phosphate fiber lasers and amplifiers

The initial motivation for this work was to build a high-power single-frequency, single-mode, linearly polarized fiber MOPA for gravitational-wave detection. Although spectacular progress has been made over the past few years in the development of single-frequency Yb3+-doped silica fiber laser sources, their maximum output powers are still limited by the onset of stimulated Brillouin scattering. To further scale the output power of single-frequency silica fiber laser sources with step-index single-mode fibers, increasing the ion concentration in the gain fiber is required. Unfortunately, excessive amounts of rare-earth ions in silica fibers cause concentration quenching, photodarkening, and crystallization. To this end, phosphate glass is a good alternative because of the high solubility of rare-earth oxides in this host. For example, the solubility of Yb2O3 in phosphate glass is at least 26 wt.%, i.e., 10 times higher than in silica. Such a high ion concentration significantly reduces the required fiber length and enables the use of a short step-index single-mode fiber without suffering from SBS up to very high output powers.;To investigate the feasibility of extracting high powers from this gain medium, we measured several key material properties of the Yb3+-doped phosphate fibers, including the SBS gain coefficient, photodarkening resistance, and fiber background loss. Our experimental results showed that, compared to silica fibers, phosphate fibers exhibit a 50% weaker SBS gain coefficient and allow a 6-times-higher Yb3+ concentration without the onset of photodarkening. We measured the scattering and absorption loss of the phosphate fiber by using an integrating sphere and a fiber calorimeter, respectively. The results showed that 77% of the fiber background loss originates from impurity absorption, and the rest from scattering. It indicates that absorption loss must be reduced to improve the efficiency of the fiber laser.;The studies of these material properties allow us to precisely evaluate the potential for power scaling of phosphate fiber lasers and amplifiers. As a proof of principle, we experimentally demonstrate truly single-mode fiber lasers and amplifiers with record output powers of several tens of watts. These laser sources include a 57-W multiple-frequency 1.06-mum fiber laser with a slope efficiency of 52.7%, and a 16-W single-frequency fiber MOPA. This is the first report of a watt-level CW Yb3+-doped phosphate fiber amplifier. We showed through numerical simulations that the exceptional characteristics of phosphate fibers can be extended to a ∼700-W single-frequency fiber amplifier from a step-index single-mode fiber. The peak thermal load of this 700-W phosphate fiber MOPA was calculated to be ∼800 W/m, which can be handled by suitable cooling. In summary, all results presented in this dissertation confirm that Yb3+-doped phosphate fibers constitute a promising gain element for power-scaling truly single-mode single-frequency fiber laser amplifiers.