Multi-kW cw fiber oscillator pumped by wavelength stabilized fiber coupled diode lasers

Frank Becker; Benjamin Neumann; Lutz Winkelmann; Steffen Belke; Stefan Ruppik; Ulrich Hefter; Bernd Köhler; Paul Wolf; Jens Biesenbach

doi:10.1117/12.2004698

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26 February 2013 Multi-kW cw fiber oscillator pumped by wavelength stabilized fiber coupled diode lasers

Frank Becker; Benjamin Neumann; Lutz Winkelmann; Steffen Belke; Stefan Ruppik; Ulrich Hefter; Bernd Köhler; Paul Wolf; Jens Biesenbach

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Proceedings Volume 8601, Fiber Lasers X: Technology, Systems, and Applications; 860131 (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2004698
Event: SPIE LASE, 2013, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

High power Yb doped fiber laser sources are beside CO2- and disk lasers one of the working horses of industrial laser applications. Due to their inherently given robustness, scalability and high efficiency, fiber laser sources are best suited to fulfill the requirements of modern industrial laser applications in terms of power and beam quality. Pumping Yb doped single-mode fiber lasers at 976nm is very efficient. Thus, high power levels can be realized avoiding limiting nonlinear effects like SRS. However the absorption band of Yb doped glass around 976nm is very narrow. Therefore, one has to consider the wavelength shift of the diode lasers used for pumping. The output spectrum of passively cooled diode lasers is mainly defined by the applied current and by the heat sink temperature. Furthermore the overall emission line width of a high power pump source is dominated by the large number of needed diode laser emitters, each producing an individual spectrum. Even though it is possible to operate multi-kW cw single-mode fiber lasers with free running diode laser pumps, wavelength stabilizing techniques for diode lasers (e.g. volume holographic gratings, VHG) can be utilized in future fiber laser sources to increase the output power level while keeping the energy consumption constant. To clarify the benefits of wavelength stabilized diode lasers with integrated VHG for wavelength locking the performance of a dual side pumped fiber oscillator is discussed in this article. For comparison, different pumping configurations consisting of stabilized and free-running diode lasers are presented.

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Frank Becker, Benjamin Neumann, Lutz Winkelmann, Steffen Belke, Stefan Ruppik, Ulrich Hefter, Bernd Köhler, Paul Wolf, and Jens Biesenbach "Multi-kW cw fiber oscillator pumped by wavelength stabilized fiber coupled diode lasers", Proc. SPIE 8601, Fiber Lasers X: Technology, Systems, and Applications, 860131 (26 February 2013); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2004698

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