Giant-chirp oscillators for short-pulse fiber amplifiers.
A new regime of pulse parameters in a normal-dispersion fiber laser is identified. Dissipative solitons exist with remarkably large pulse duration and chirp, along with large pulse energy. A low-repetition-rate oscillator that generates pulses with large and linear chirp can replace the standard oscillator, stretcher, pulse-picker, and preamplifier in a chirped-pulse fiber amplifier. The theoretical properties of such a giant-chirp oscillator are presented. A fiber laser designed to operate in the new regime generates approximately 150 ps pulses at a 3 MHz repetition rate. Amplification of these pulses to 1 microJ energy with pulse duration as short as 670 fs demonstrates the promise of this new approach.
Renninger
William H
WH
Department of Applied Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. whr6@cornell.edu
Chong
Andy
A
Wise
Frank W
FW
D000669:Amplifiers, Electronic; D004867:Equipment Design; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology; D007834:Lasers; D015233:Models, Statistical; D016011:Normal Distribution; D055095:Optics and Photonics; D009991:Oscillometry / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013997:Time Factors