Fiber lasers have proven themselves in a wide variety of scientific, industrial, and defense applications. Primarily, these applications benefit from one or more of the following aspects of the fiber laser architecture: improve thermal management, insensitivity to thermal lensing, modular design, compact and robust packaging. However, there is a great deal of laser research and development still to be done particularly in the area of high power “eye-safe” lasers λ >1.4 um.
As part of an ARO funded MRI program on “High Power Fiber Lasers” initiated in 2006, LPL has focused on expanding the development of the thulium doped fiber lasers operating at wavelengths from ~1800 – 2100 nm. We have designed, constructed and characterized CW lasers producing <200 W with narrow and widely tunable wavelength, Q-switched lasers producing up to 500 uJ with <100 ns pulse duration at 20 kHz repetition rate, and femtosecond lasers producing <150 fs pulses with peak powers approaching 100 kW.
In addition, we investigate the application of these novel lasers in a variety of fields such as long-range atmospheric propagation, materials processing, non-linear optics, testing of mid-IR optical materials, etc. The investigations range from proof-of-concept experiments for new ideas to component testing to assist our external academic and industrial collaborators in the development of new devices and/or the modification of devices originally designed for use with ytterbium or erbium fiber lasers.
