title: High power operation of cladding pumped holmium-doped silica fibre lasers.
abstract: We report the highest power operation of a resonantly cladding-pumped, holmium-doped silica fibre laser. The cladding pumped all-glass fibre utilises a fluorine doped glass layer to provide low loss cladding guidance of the 1.95 µm pump radiation. The operation of both single mode and large-mode area fibre lasers was demonstrated, with up to 140 W of output power achieved. A slope efficiency of 59% versus launched pump power was demonstrated. The free running emission was measured to be 2.12-2.15 µm demonstrating the potential of this architecture to address the long wavelength operation of silica based fibre lasers with high efficiency.
authors.affiliation: Electro-Optic Technology Group, Electronic Warfare and Radar Division, Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Edinburgh, SA 5111, Australia. alexander.hemming@dsto.defence.gov.au
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hemming
authors.forename: Shayne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bennetts
authors.forename: Nikita
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Simakov
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Davidson
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Haub
authors.forename: Adrian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Carter
mesh_terms: D000669:Amplifiers, Electronic; D004735:Energy Transfer; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D006695:Holmium / Q000737:chemistry*; D053844:Lasers, Solid-State; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D012822:Silicon Dioxide; D006695:Holmium