An all-fiber high-power erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) source generating optical
pulses from 200 µs to 5 ms with a stable rectangular envelope for
fractional photo-rejuvenation is proposed and experimentally
demonstrated. A master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) configuration
composed of a master oscillator, an acousto-optic modulator (AOM), and
a one-stage amplifier is designed and employed in the EDFL to serve as
an efficient laser system with excellent output performance. To avoid
multistage amplifiers, the master oscillator generates 1.5 W, and a
Yb-free Er-doped large-mode-area (LMA) active fiber is used for a
one-stage power amplifier. There are two benefits to this approach:
first, modulation of both pump and seed pulses is used to achieve
clear rectangular shaped pulses without amplified spontaneous emission
(ASE) growth; and second, there are no power limitations in the
amplifier and undesirable 1 µm ASE compared to Er/Yb systems. We have
reached 28.6 W of peak power with 26% slope efficiency limited only by
available pump power, so the system can be easily scaled for achieving
a higher peak power.