First pulse of relaxation oscillations that appear after the start of the pumping can be used to realize an efficient pulsed laser based on gain switching. Because there is no need for any additional active optical element this can be very simple and robust technique to produce nanosecond pulses. Together with fiber technology it can produce compact and reliable lasers appropriate for industrial applications such as micro-processing. However, to produce pulses with appropriate peak power and duration, one must carefully design such systems. We report on a numerical model that describes time and spatial dependencies of photon and ion populations which was developed to enable design and optimization of a gainswitched fiber laser. The peak pump power influence on basic output laser pulse parameters is presented in this paper. To confirm theoretical result an experimental setup was built around double clad ytterbium doped fiber laser.

Date Published: 22 March 2013
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 8601, Fiber Lasers X: Technology, Systems, and Applications, 860128 (22 March 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2002324

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8601:
Fiber Lasers X: Technology, Systems, and Applications
Sami T. Hendow, Editor(s)