Compact reliable fiber laser systems for industrial applications

A number of compact, diode-pumped sources of femtosecond optical pulses have been demonstrated by combining fiber and electric-field-poled lithium niobate technologies. Use of chirped-period-poled lithium niobate (CPPLN) for simultaneous pulse compression and second-harmonic generation has led to the demonstration of robust high-power and high-energy fiber-amplifier based chirped pulse amplification (CPA) systems. Use of parametric gain in PPLN has led to the demonstration of a new class of compact diode-pumped femtosecond microamplifiers, which can achieve up to 80 dB of single-pass gain with arbitrarily broad, optically engineerable bandwidth and can provide microjoule output-pulse energies.