An all-fiber high-power picosecond amplifier with Yb-doped polarization-maintaining tapered fiber

Abstract

Abstract A high-power picosecond all-fiber master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) was demonstrated based on the Yb-doped polarization-maintaining (PM) tapered double-clad fiber (T-DCF). An all-fiberized pumping unit instead of the free space pumping structure was adopted in the MOPA system to provide a compact robust solution for high-performance amplifiers. The total average output power of 180.3 W was achieved with a slope efficiency of 80.8% by taking advantages of the large fiber mode area and the suppression of nonlinear effects in the T-DCF. The peak power was calculated to be 27.7 kW at the pulse width of 260.8 ps and the repetition rate of 24.91 MHz. The polarization extinction ratio and beam quality (M 2 factor) were measured to be ∼10 dB (91%) and ∼12, respectively.