ABSTRACT
A significant advancement of cw lasing in Cr4+:Y3Al5O12 (Cr4+:YAG) double-clad crystal fiber grown by the codrawing laser-heated pedestal growth technique was demonstrated at RT. The optical-to-optical slope efficiency of 33.9% is the highest, to the best of our knowledge, among all Cr4+:YAG lasers, whether they are in bulk or fiber forms. The low-threshold lasing of 78.2 mW and high efficiency are in good agreement with the simulation. The keys to the high laser efficiency are twofold: one is the improved Cr4+ emission cross section and fluorescence lifetime due to release of the strain on the distorted Cr4+ tetrahedron, which also mitigates photobleaching in Cr4+:YAG; the other is the improved core uniformity at long fiber lengths. In addition, because of the low threshold, the impact of excited state absorption of the pump light is significantly reduced. The effects of crystal-orientation, self-selected, and pump-dependent linear polarization states were also addressed.
ABSTRACT
We demonstrate a compact, room-temperature, cw Yb(3+):Y(3)Al(5)O(12) silica (Yb(3+):YAG silica) fiber laser grown by the codrawing laser-heated pedestal growth technique. A slope efficiency of 76.3% was achieved from a 7 mm Yb(3+):YAG silica fiber, corresponding to an extracted power of nearly 1 W/cm. A laser side-mode suppression ratio of 70 dB was obtained with a 3 dB linewidth of 0.15 nm. Additionally, the propagation loss and emission cross section were determined by analyzing the lasing thresholds and slope efficiencies.
