Millijoule-level Yb-doped photonic crystal fiber laser passively Q-switched with AlGaInAs quantum wells

Abstract

We report on a millijoule-level Yb-doped photonic crystal fiber (PCF) laser passively Q-switched with AlGaInAs quantum wells (QWs). Three types of AlGaInAs devices with different QW numbers are fabricated to investigate the performance. With 50 groups of three AlGaInAs QWs as a saturable absorber (SA), the PCF laser generates an average power of 7.1 W with a pulse repetition rate of 6.5 kHz at a pump power of 16 W, corresponding to the pulse energy of 1.1 mJ. The maximum peak power is up to 110 kW. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America