High energy, 1572.3 nm pulses for CO2 LIDAR from a polarization-maintaining, very-large-mode-area, Er-doped fiber amplifier.

We demonstrate the first polarization-maintaining, very-large-mode-area, Er-doped fiber amplifier with ~1100 µm2 effective area. The amplifier is core pumped by a Raman fiber laser and is used to generate single-frequency, one-microsecond, pulses with pulse energy of 541 µJ, peak power of 700 W, M2 of 1.1, and polarization extinction > 20 dB. The amplifier operates at 1572.3 nm, a wavelength useful for trace atmospheric CO2 detection.