High power femtosecond chirped pulse amplification in large mode area photonic bandgap Bragg fibers

We report on high power amplification of femtosecond pulses in 40-μm core diameter Yb-doped photonic bandgap Bragg fibers. The robustness to bending and transverse spatial behavior of these fibers is analyzed through simulations. The fibers are used in both stages of a moderately stretched (150 ps) femtosecond chirped pulsed amplification (CPA) system. A compressed average power of 6.3 W is obtained using a low-index polymer-coated Bragg fiber with excellent beam quality and high efficiency, in agreement with numerical simulations. The use of an air-clad Bragg fiber allows us to scale the output power to 47 W at a repetition rate of 35 MHz. This experiment demonstrates the great potential of Bragg fibers to increase the mode area and the power of practical bending-tolerant femtosecond fiber systems.