Fused fiber pump and signal combiners for a 4-kW ytterbium fiber laser

Martin H. Muendel; Roger Farrow; Kai-Hsiu Liao; Dirk Woll; Johnny Luu; Chris Zhang; James J. Morehead; Jeff Segall; Jeff Gregg; Kuochou Tai; Boris Kharlamov; Hongbo Yu; Lawrence Myers

doi:10.1117/12.877572

21 February 2011 Fused fiber pump and signal combiners for a 4-kW ytterbium fiber laser

Martin H. Muendel, Roger Farrow, Kai-Hsiu Liao, Dirk Woll, Johnny Luu, Chris Zhang, James J. Morehead, Jeff Segall, Jeff Gregg, Kuochou Tai, Boris Kharlamov, Hongbo Yu, Lawrence Myers

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 7914, Fiber Lasers VIII: Technology, Systems, and Applications; 791431 (2011) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.877572
Event: SPIE LASE, 2011, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

We report the development of fused-fiber pump and signal combiners. These combiners are enabling components of a ytterbium fiber-laser emitting 4 kW of 1080-nm radiation. The fiber-laser system consists of seven fiber laser modules and a 7:1 signal combiner. The laser modules are end-pumped by 90 915-nm JDSU L4 diode-lasers, yielding a nominal pump power of 900 W. The diode laser radiation is coupled into the laser fiber through a 91:1 fused-fiber pump combiner. The input fibers of this pump combiner are standard 105/125-um multimode fibers with an NA of 0.22. These fibers form a hexagonally packed fused-fiber bundle, which is tapered to match the cladding diameter of the laser fiber. Eighty-six percent of the light exiting the pump-combiner is emitted within an NA of 0.32, and all measurable power is emitted within an NA of 0.45. The typical insertion loss of the pump combiners is <1%. The high-brightness radiation of seven laser modules is combined into a single output fiber using a 7:1 fused-fiber signal combiner providing a total power of >4 kW in the single output beam. The beam parameter product of the combined output was 2.5 mm-mrad. The low insertion loss of < 2% indicates that the signal combiner is suitable to handle even higher laser powers.

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Martin H. Muendel, Roger Farrow, Kai-Hsiu Liao, Dirk Woll, Johnny Luu, Chris Zhang, James J. Morehead, Jeff Segall, Jeff Gregg, Kuochou Tai, Boris Kharlamov, Hongbo Yu, and Lawrence Myers "Fused fiber pump and signal combiners for a 4-kW ytterbium fiber laser", Proc. SPIE 7914, Fiber Lasers VIII: Technology, Systems, and Applications, 791431 (21 February 2011); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.877572

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