Influence of Pump Current Waveform on The Mitigation of Transverse Mode Instability in Fiber Laser Oscillator

Abstract

We carry out a detailed investigation of TMI mitigation by pump modulation based on multiple current waveforms in a fiber laser oscillator. Compared with continuous wave (CW), the modulation of various waveforms, including sinusoidal wave, triangular wave, and pulse wave with a duty cycle of 50% and 60%, can increase the TMI threshold. The average output power of a stabilized beam is boosted via the adjustment of phase difference between the signal channels. The TMI threshold is increased to 270 W under a modulation of pulse wave (duty cycle: 60%) with a phase difference of 440 μs, where the beam quality is 1.45. This threshold can be further improved by adding groups of pump LDs and drivers, which is a promising approach for beam stabilization of high-power fiber lasers.