Fiber lasers and amplifiers: an ultrafast performance evolution.
The first rare-earth-doped fiber lasers were operated in the early sixties and produced a few milliwatts at a wavelength around 1 mum. For the next several decades, fiber lasers were little more than a low-power laboratory curiosity. Recently, however, fiber lasers are entering the realm of kilowatt powers in continuous as well as in pulse operation with diffraction-limited beam quality. In this article we review this power evolution.
Tünnermann
Andreas
A
Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Institute of Applied Physics, Max-Wien-Platz 1, D-07743 Jena, Germany.
Schreiber
Thomas
T
Limpert
Jens
J