High pulse energy, narrow-linewidth all-fiber 1064 nm picosecond master oscillator power amplifier system

Abstract We demonstrated the generation of narrow spectral bandwidth, high energy picosecond pulses from a low repetition rate SESAM mode-locked laser seeded Yb-doped fiber MOPA system. A short large mode field diameter gain fiber (DCF-30/250) was adopted to efficiently reduce the influence of nonlinear effects. The maximum pulse energy of 12.36 μJ, ∼60 ps pulses with a narrow bandwidth was obtained at a repetition rate of 5 MHz, corresponding to the peak power of 0.2 MW and average output power of 64 W. The optical-to-optical conversion efficiency was ∼64% in such a low repetition rate all-fiber laser design. The output pulse spectra and temporal trace of the MOPA system for different output powers was investigated by simulation. The simulation results were in agreement with experiment but further showed that the spectral splitting would occur as output power increased.