Design and test of a rigid endomicroscopic system for multimodal imaging and femtosecond laser ablation.

Significance: Conventional diagnosis of laryngeal cancer is normally made by a combination of endoscopic examination, a subsequent biopsy, and histopathology, but this requires several days and unnecessary biopsies can increase pathologist workload. Nonlinear imaging implemented through endoscopy can shorten this diagnosis time, and localize the margin of the cancerous area with high resolution. Aim: Develop a rigid endomicroscope for the head and neck region, aiming for in-vivo multimodal imaging with a large field of view (FOV) and tissue ablation. Approach: Three nonlinear imaging modalities, which are coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering, two-photon excitation fluorescence, and second harmonic generation, as well as the single photon fluorescence of indocyanine green, are applied for multimodal endomicroscopic imaging. High-energy femtosecond laser pulses are transmitted for tissue ablation. Results: This endomicroscopic system consists of two major parts, one is the rigid endomicroscopic tube 250 mm in length and 6 mm in diameter, and the other is the scan-head (10×12×6 cm3 in size) for quasi-static scanning imaging. The final multimodal image accomplishes a maximum FOV up to 650 µm, and a resolution of 1 µm is achieved over 560 µm FOV. The optics can easily guide sub-picosecond pulses for ablation. Conclusions: The system exhibits large potential for helping real-time tissue diagnosis in surgery, by providing histological tissue information with a large FOV and high resolution, label-free. By guiding high-energy fs laser pulses, the system is even able to remove suspicious tissue areas, as has been shown for thin tissue sections in this study.

Carrier-envelope phase stable few-cycle laser system delivering more than 100 W, 1 mJ, sub-2-cycle pulses.

Two-stage multipass-cell compression of a fiber-chirped-pulse amplifier system to the few-cycle regime is presented. The output delivers a sub-2-cycle (5.8 fs), 107 W average power, 1.07 mJ pulses at 100 kHz centered at 1030 nm with excellent spatial beam quality (M2 = 1.1, Strehl ratio S = 0.98), pointing stability (2.3 µrad), and superior long-term average power stability of 0.1% STD over more than 8 hours. This is combined with a carrier-envelope phase stability of 360 mrad in the frequency range from 10 Hz to 50 kHz, i.e., measured on a single-shot basis. This unique system will serve as an HR1 laser for the Extreme Light Infrastructure Attosecond Light Pulse Source research facility to enable high repetition rate isolated attosecond pulse generation.

Transverse single-mode operation in a passive large pitch fiber with more than 200 µm mode-field diameter.

In this Letter, we present, to the best of our knowledge, the largest effective single-mode fiber reported to date. The employed waveguide is a passive large pitch fiber (LPF), which shows the core area scaling potential of such a fiber structure. In particular, we achieved stable single-transverse mode transmission at a wavelength of 1.03 µm through a straight passive LPF with a pitch of 140 µm, resulting in a measured mode-field diameter of 205 µm.

Watt-scale super-octave mid-infrared intrapulse difference frequency generation.

The development of high-power, broadband sources of coherent mid-infrared radiation is currently the subject of intense research that is driven by a substantial number of existing and continuously emerging applications in medical diagnostics, spectroscopy, microscopy, and fundamental science. One of the major, long-standing challenges in improving the performance of these applications has been the construction of compact, broadband mid-infrared radiation sources, which unify the properties of high brightness and spatial and temporal coherence. Due to the lack of such radiation sources, several emerging applications can be addressed only with infrared (IR)-beamlines in large-scale synchrotron facilities, which are limited regarding user access and only partially fulfill these properties. Here, we present a table-top, broadband, coherent mid-infrared light source that provides brightness at an unprecedented level that supersedes that of synchrotrons in the wavelength range between 3.7 and 18 µm by several orders of magnitude. This result is enabled by a high-power, few-cycle Tm-doped fiber laser system, which is employed as a pump at 1.9 µm wavelength for intrapulse difference frequency generation (IPDFG). IPDFG intrinsically ensures the formation of carrier-envelope-phase stable pulses, which provide ideal prerequisites for state-of-the-art spectroscopy and microscopy.

Thermal analysis of Yb-doped high-power fiber amplifiers with Al:P co-doped cores.

It has been recently shown that photodarkening can significantly reduce the mode instability threshold in high power Yb-doped fiber amplifiers, thus resulting in an even more severe limitation to the scaling of the output average power of these systems. Therefore, an efficient reduction of photodarkening in an Yb-doped active fiber will lead to very significant gains in the output average power delivered by such systems. In this context, it has been reported that photodarkening can be significantly mitigated when co-doping a fiber core with Al and P, which makes this approach potentially appealing to increase the TMI threshold. Unfortunately co-doping the fiber core with Al and P also alters the effective cross-sections of the fiber, which has repercussion in the amplification efficiency. Thus, a fiber with a higher P concentration will exhibit lower cross-sections, therefore requiring a higher Yb-ion concentration to reach a certain desired amplification efficiency. However, increasing the Yb-ion concentration leads to higher photodarkening losses, which might potentially counteract the benefits of using P co-doping. In this paper we present a comparative analysis of the expected performance of different fiber amplifiers for a given constant average heat-load and amplification efficiency as a function of the ratio of Al:P concentration in the fiber core. This study indicates which core compositions are more beneficial for increasing the mode instability threshold in Yb-doped high-power fiber amplifier systems.

Carbon chloride-core fibers for soliton mediated supercontinuum generation.

We report on soliton-fission mediated infrared supercontinuum generation in liquid-core step-index fibers using highly transparent carbon chlorides (CCl4, C2Cl4). By developing models for the refractive index dispersions and nonlinear response functions, dispersion engineering and pumping with an ultrafast thulium fiber laser (300 fs) at 1.92 µm, distinct soliton fission and dispersive wave generation was observed, particularly in the case of tetrachloroethylene (C2Cl4). The measured results match simulations of both the generalized and a hybrid nonlinear Schrödinger equation, with the latter resembling the characteristics of non-instantaneous medium via a static potential term and representing a simulation tool with substantially reduced complexity. We show that C2Cl4 has the potential for observing non-instantaneous soliton dynamics along meters of liquid-core fiber opening a feasible route for directly observing hybrid soliton dynamics.

Measuring thermal load in fiber amplifiers in the presence of transversal mode instabilities.

We report on detailed in situ distributed temperature measurements inside a high power fiber amplifier. The deducted thermal load and the transversal mode instability (TMI) threshold of a commercial large mode area fiber with 25 µm core and 400 µm cladding were measured at various seed wavelengths. By matching these results with detailed simulations we show that photodarkening has a negligible impact on the thermal load and, therefore, on the TMI threshold in this fiber.

Active intensity noise suppression for a broadband mid-infrared laser source.

Excess relative intensity noise (RIN) constitutes one of the major limitations of most spectroscopic methods involving lasers. Here, we present an active RIN suppression scheme for a coherent mid-infrared (MIR) light source (8.4-11 µm), based on intra-pulse difference frequency generation (DFG). Three different stabilization concepts that rely on modulating the intensity of the driving near-infrared (NIR) pulse train with an acousto-optic modulator are investigated and compared. By using the wings of the NIR spectrum to generate the error signal, a RIN suppression of the MIR pulse train of up to a factor of 20 was achieved in the band between 1 Hz and 100 kHz, resulting in a total integrated RIN of 0.07%.

Hybrid soliton dynamics in liquid-core fibres.

The discovery of optical solitons being understood as temporally and spectrally stationary optical states has enabled numerous innovations among which, most notably, supercontinuum light sources have become widely used in both fundamental and applied sciences. Here, we report on experimental evidence for dynamics of hybrid solitons-a new type of solitary wave, which emerges as a result of a strong non-instantaneous nonlinear response in CS2-filled liquid-core optical fibres. Octave-spanning supercontinua in the mid-infrared region are observed when pumping the hybrid waveguide with a 460 fs laser (1.95 µm) in the anomalous dispersion regime at nanojoule-level pulse energies. A detailed numerical analysis well correlated with the experiment uncovers clear indicators of emerging hybrid solitons, revealing their impact on the bandwidth, onset energy and noise characteristics of the supercontinua. Our study highlights liquid-core fibres as a promising platform for fundamental optics and applications towards novel coherent and reconfigurable light sources.Here, Chemnitz et al. report experimental evidence for hybrid solitons - a type of solitary wave, which emerges as a result of a strong non-instantaneous nonlinear response in CS2-filled liquid-core optical fibres, demonstrating efficient soliton-driven supercontinuum generation.

Impact of atmospheric molecular absorption on the temporal and spatial evolution of ultra-short optical pulses.

We present a rigorous study on the impact of atmospheric molecular absorption on the linear propagation of ultrashort pulses in the mid-infrared wavelength region. An ultrafast thulium-based fiber laser was employed to experimentally investigate ultrashort-pulse propagation through the atmosphere in a spectral region containing several strong molecular absorption lines. The atmospheric absorption profile causes a significant degradation of the pulse quality in the time domain as well as a distortion of the transverse beam profile in the spatial domain. Numerical simulations carried out in the small signal limit accurately reproduce the experimental observations in the time domain and reveal that the relative loss in peak power after propagation can be more than twice as high as the relative amount of absorbed average power. Although their nature is purely linear (i.e. the intensities considered are sufficiently low) the discussed effects represent significant challenges to performance-scaling of mid-infrared ultrafast lasers operating in spectral regions with molecular absorption bands. Guidelines for an efficient mitigation of the pulse quality degradation and the beam profile distortion are discussed.

Tm-based fiber-laser system with more than 200 MW peak power.

Tm-based fiber-laser systems are an attractive concept for the development of high-performance laser sources in the spectral region around 2 µm wavelength. Here we present a system delivering a pulse-peak power higher than 200 MW in combination with 24 W average power and 120 µJ pulse energy. Key components enabling this performance level are a Tm-doped large-pitch fiber with a mode-field diameter of 65 µm, highly efficient dielectric gratings, and a Tm-based fiber oscillator operating in the stretched-pulse regime.

2 kW average power from a pulsed Yb-doped rod-type fiber amplifier.

This Letter reports on a fiber-laser system that, employing a 1 m long rod-type photonic-crystal fiber as its main-amplifier, emits a record average output power of 2 kW, by amplifying stretched ps-pulses. A further increase of the output power was only limited by the available laser-diode pump power. The energy of the pulses is 100 µJ, corresponding to MW-level peak powers extracted directly from the fiber of the main amplifier. The corresponding M2 at the maximum output power is <3, due to the onset of mode instabilities. The Letter covers the influence of this effect on the evolution of the beam quality with the output power. The numerical results show that the M2 value settles at around 3, even if the output average power is further increased.

152 W average power Tm-doped fiber CPA system.

A high-power thulium (Tm)-doped fiber chirped-pulse amplification system emitting a record compressed average output power of 152 W and 4 MW peak power is demonstrated. This result is enabled by utilizing Tm-doped photonic crystal fibers with mode-field diameters of 35 µm, which mitigate detrimental nonlinearities, exhibit slope efficiencies of more than 50%, and allow for reaching a pump-power-limited average output power of 241 W. The high-compression efficiency has been achieved by using multilayer dielectric gratings with diffraction efficiencies higher than 98%.

Scaling the mode instability threshold with multicore fibers.

Mode instabilities (MIs) have quickly become the most limiting effect for the average power scaling of nearly diffraction-limited beams from state-of-the-art fiber laser systems. In this work it is shown that, by using an advanced multicore photonic crystal fiber design, the threshold power of MIs can be increased linearly with the number of cores. An average output power of 536 W, corresponding to 4 times the threshold power of a single core, is demonstrated.

Triple-clad large-pitch fibers for compact high-power pulsed fiber laser systems.

We present a novel ytterbium (Yb)-doped large-pitch fiber design with significantly increased pump absorption and higher energy storage/gain per unit length, which enables high-peak-power fiber laser systems with smaller footprints. Up to now index matching between core and surrounding material in microstructured fibers was achieved by co-doping the active core region with fluorine. Here we carry out the index matching by passively doping the cladding with germanium, thus raising its index of refraction. Hence, the fluorine in the core can be omitted, which leads to an effective increase of the core doping concentration, while detrimental effects such as photo-darkening and lifetime quenching are avoided by maintaining the bulk Yb concentration. Experiments and simulations show that a gain higher than 50 dB/m and an output average power higher than 100 W with excellent beam quality are feasible even with a fiber length of only 40 cm.

Controlling mode instabilities by dynamic mode excitation with an acousto-optic deflector.

We demonstrate an approach to actively stabilize the beam profile of a fiber amplifier above the mode instability threshold. Both the beam quality and the pointing stability are significantly increased at power levels of up to three times the mode instabilities threshold. The physical working principle is discussed at the light of the recently published theoretical explanations of mode instabilities.

Passive mitigation strategies for mode instabilities in high-power fiber laser systems.

Mode instabilities have quickly become the most limiting effect when it comes to scaling the output average power of fiber laser systems. In consequence, there is an urgent need for effective strategies to mitigate it and, thus, to increase the power threshold at which it appears. Passive mitigation strategies can be classified into intrinsic, which are related to the fiber design, and extrinsic, which require a modification of the setup. In order to evaluate the impact of mitigation strategies, a means to calculate its power threshold and predict its behavior is required. In this paper we present a simple semi-analytic formula that is able to predict the changes of the mode instability threshold by analyzing the strength of the thermally-induced waveguide perturbations. Furthermore, we propose two passive mitigation strategies, one intrinsic and one extrinsic, that should lead to a significant increase of the power threshold of mode instabilities.

2.4 mJ, 33 W Q-switched Tm-doped fiber laser with near diffraction-limited beam quality.

We report on a high pulse energy and high average power Q-switched Tm-doped fiber oscillator. The oscillator produces 2.4 mJ pulses with 33 W average power (at a repetition rate of 13.9 kHz) and nearly diffraction-limited beam quality. This record performance is enabled by a Tm-doped large-pitch fiber, which allows for large core diameters in combination with effective single-mode operation.

High-power thermally guiding index-antiguiding-core fibers.

We investigate high-power operation of a very-large-mode-area (VLMA) fiber concept based on an index-antiguiding, thermally guiding core in which an ytterbium-doped region is completely surrounded by silica with a slightly higher refractive index. Experimentally, regimes of antiguidance, single-mode operation, and mode instabilities predominantly with radially symmetric higher-order modes are observed. Fundamental limitations for conventional VLMA step-index fibers are discussed.

High-power very large mode-area thulium-doped fiber laser.

Large-pitch photonic-crystal fibers have demonstrated their unique capability of combining very large mode areas, high output powers and robust single-mode operation at a wavelength of 1 µm. In this Letter, we present the experimental realization of thulium-doped very large mode-area fibers based on the large-pitch fibers with record mode-field diameters exceeding 60 µm and delivering more than 52 W of output power.