Single transversal mode Yb-doped fiber laser exceeding 800 watts of output power

B. Ehlers¹, S. Heinemann1, F. Doerfel¹, C. H. Liu², A. Galvanauskas²  

¹ Fraunhofer Center for Laser Technology 46025 Port Street, Plymouth, Michigan

² University of Michigan, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 1301 Beal Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan  

Abstract:

High power fiber-coupled diode laser modules have been developed for pumping of fiber lasers and fiber amplifiers. Each of the laser modules provides up to 500 Watts of output power operating at one wavelength. Spectral beam combining of these pumps scales the power into the kilowatts out of one multimode fiber. Several of these fiber-coupled pumps are spectrally combined and used for two-sided pumping of Yb-doped fiber lasers. A large mode area double clad fiber is used with a core diameter of 20 micrometer core. This set-up produces a near diffraction limited fiber laser output of more than 800 watts. Mode discrimination is achieved by coiling of the active fiber.