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中国物理学会期刊

激光二极管直接后向泵浦的高光束质量万瓦光纤激光器

CSTR: 32037.14.aps.71.20221433

Laser diode directly backward pumped high-beam-quality 10-kW fiber laser

CSTR: 32037.14.aps.71.20221433
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  • 高功率高光束质量光纤激光器在工业生产中得到了广泛应用, 但其受到光纤中非线性效应等现象的制约, 进一步功率提升严重受阻. 本文基于大模场低数值孔径增益光纤搭建了激光二极管直接泵浦的全光纤激光放大器. 通过改变增益光纤的弯曲直径, 有效地提升了动态模式不稳定阈值, 实现了最高功率10.53 kW, 光光转换效率74.04%, 光束质量因子 M^2 \sim 2.88 的激光输出. 研究表明, 在少模光纤激光放大器中, 提升输出功率与改善光束质量的方法相互制约. 不考虑光束质量时激光器可以较为简单的获得万瓦乃至更高功率输出; 但是在提升功率的同时保持光束质量不退化是一件充满挑战且难度极大的工作.

     

    Fiber lasers have been widely used in the industrial and scientific fields due to their advantages of high conversion efficiency, simple thermal management, and consistent stability. High brightness and high-power fiber lasers are affected by stimulated Raman scattering and transverse mode instability, which limits the power scaling of fiber lasers. Therefore, there are only a few researches achieving a 10 kW-level fiber laser system by laser diode direct pumping or tandem pumping. In this work, we demonstrate an all-fiber laser amplifier based on home-made low numerical aperture (NA) fiber pumped by 976 nm laser diodes. When the signal light is input to the gain fiber with a minimum bending diameter of 12 cm, the beam quality factor M2 is about 1.72. The onset of transverse mode instability (TMI) is observed at 2467 W output power, accompanied by beam quality degradation. In order to suppress the onset of TMI, the minimum bending diameter of the gain fiber is changed from 12 cm to 20 cm. And the signal light is input into the gain fiber with a bending diameter of 28 cm. Benefiting from this operation, the fiber laser amplifier achieves maximum output power of 10.53 kW with an optical-to-optical efficiency of 74.04%, and there is no TMI onset observed. However, increasing bending diameter inevitably leads the beam quality to degrade. At the maximum output power, the beam quality factor M2 is 2.88. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest optical-to-optical efficiency and the best beam quality in 10 kW-level laser diodes pumping fiber lasers. Generally, it is believed that reducing bending diameter can suppress TMI by increasing high-order mode loss. However, this rule is not applicable to few-mode fiber lasers. A larger bending diameter leads more high-order modes to be contained in the signal light instead of leaking into the cladding area. Thus, a higher output and poor beam quality are obtained. Also, it is believed that tightly coiled fiber can make mode coupling easier and trigger off TMI, which results in a positive correlation between the TMI threshold and bending diameter. Low NA fibers are very sensitive to bending, and reducing the bend diameter to control the beam quality will result in lower efficiency and a lower TMI threshold. Therefore, although producing a 10 kW-level fiber laser is simple, maintaining good beam quality in the power scaling process is still a challenge. The results of this study will be a valuable reference for high power fiber laser design.

     

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