Coupling dynamics for a photonic crystal fiber femtosecond laser nonlinear amplification system

Abstract

A femtosecond laser single-stage nonlinear amplification system composed of Yb-doped large-mode-area single-polarization photonic crystal fibers is demonstrated. Effects of net cavity dispersion and pump power on oscillator output parameters and the evolution dynamics of the amplified pulse after compression are discussed for different seed pulse parameters. Under the experimental conditions in this paper, the longer and less chirped pulses are obtained with a larger negative net intracavity dispersion in the oscillator. When a nearly-transform-limited pulse is chosen as seed pulse nder the condition of oscillator pump power of 4.53 W, the shortest nearly-pedestal-free amplified pulse is achieved under the amplifier pump power of 60 W after the dispersion is compensated by a grating pair, in which the pulse duration is 45.7 fs with an average power of 28 W at a refletition frequency of 42 MHz. When the oscillator pump power is increased to 5.08 W and most nearly-transform-limited pulses under the pump condition are selected as the seed pulses, the maximum average power of 34.5 W with a duration of 53.5 fs is obtained at an amplifier pump power of 70 W.