Mode-locked thulium-doped fiber lasers for supercontinuum generation in the mid-infrared
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- In recent years, there has been significant interest in the "eye-safer" 2-[micrometer] wavelength range for applications varying from laser-driven particle acceleration to remote sensing to mid-infrared spectroscopy. Trivalent thulium has shown promise as a viable dopant to fulfill several requirements of these applications through its wide gain bandwidth, from ~1.8 to 2.1 [micrometers], and its ability to efficiently power scale. By further broadening the output spectrum of an ultrafast Tm-doped fiber source through supercontinuum generation (SCG), an instantaneously broadband mid-IR spectrum can be produced, which is particularly useful for mid-IR spectroscopy. In this dissertation, I demonstrate thulium's ability to generate ultrafast pulses in a mode-locked all-fiber laser, the figure-eight laser (F8L). Through the various operating regimes of the F8L, pulse widths ranging from 1.5 ps to 20 ns could be generated. Amplification of the F8L output allowed for temporal pulse compression to less than 400 fs with ~100 kW of peak power. In addition to the F8L, a subharmonic optical parametric oscillator (OPO) was explored as a possible 2-[micrometer] oscillator. The sync-pumped doubly-resonant OPO converted pulses from a 1-[micrometer] mode-locked fiber laser to 2 [micrometers], utilizing a PPLN crystal as the nonlinear gain medium. The subharmonic OPO generated less than 50-fs pulses, shorter than any reported Tm-doped oscillator to date. To utilize these sources for mid-IR spectroscopy, the spectral bandwidth can be significantly broadened through SCG. With a tapered chalcogenide fiber pumped by a Tm-doped fiber laser, the output spectrum was broadened from ~227 nm centered at 2.04 [micrometers] to span from 1 to 3.7 [micrometers].
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2013 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Rudy, Charles William |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Electrical Engineering. |
| Primary advisor | Byer, R. L. (Robert L.), 1942- |
| Thesis advisor | Byer, R. L. (Robert L.), 1942- |
| Thesis advisor | Digonnet, Michel J. F |
| Thesis advisor | Solgaard, Olav |
| Advisor | Digonnet, Michel J. F |
| Advisor | Solgaard, Olav |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Charles William Rudy. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2013. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2013 by Charles William Rudy
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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