title: Brightness enhancement in a high-peak-power cladding-pumped Raman fiber amplifier.
abstract: We demonstrate a cladding-pumped Raman fiber amplifier (CPRFA) whose brightness-enhancement factor depends on the cladding-to-core diameter ratio. The pump and the signal are coupled independently into different input arms of a pump-signal combiner, and the output is spliced to the Raman amplifier fiber. The CPRFA generates 20 microJ, 7 ns pulses at 1100 nm at a 2.2 kHz repetition rate with 300 microJ (25.1 kW peak power) of input pump energy. The amplified signal's peak power is 2.77 kW, and the brightness-enhancement factor is 192--the highest peak power and brightness enhancement achieved in a CPRFA at any wavelength, to our knowledge.
authors.affiliation: National Ignition Facility and Photon Science Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94551, USA. sridharan1@llnl.gov
authors.forename: Arun Kumar
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Sridharan
authors.forename: John E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Heebner
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Messerly
authors.forename: Jay W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Dawson
authors.forename: Raymond J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Beach
authors.forename: C P J
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Barty