1.5-μm high-gain and high-power laser amplifier using a Er, Yb:Glass planar waveguide for coherent Doppler LIDAR

Author

Sakimura, Takeshi ; Watanabe, Yojiro ; Ando, Toshiyuki ; Kameyama, Shumpei ; Asaka, Kimio ; Tanaka, Hisamichi ; Yanagisawa, Takayuki ; Hirano, Yoshihito ; Inokuchi, Hamaki

Author_Institution

Inf. Technol. R&D Center, Mitsubishi Electr. Corp., Kamakura, Japan

fYear

2012

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

2

Abstract

We have developed a 1.5-μm high-power laser amplifier using Er, Yb:glass planar waveguide for a coherent Doppler LIDAR. Large cooling surface of the waveguide realized high-average power pumping for Er, Yb:glass which has low thermal fracture limit. Multi-bounce optical path configuration and high-intensity pumping provide high-gain operation in spite of small stimulated emission cross section. With pulsed operation, the maximum amplified signal power was 7.6-W with the amplified gain of more than 20 dB. The pulse energy of 1.9-mJ was achieved at the repetition rate of 4-kHz.

Keywords

erbium; fracture; laser transitions; light coherence; optical planar waveguides; optical pulse generation; optical pumping; optical radar; solid lasers; stimulated emission; waveguide lasers; ytterbium; Er, Yb:glass planar waveguide; coherent Doppler LIDAR; energy 1.9 mJ; frequency 4 kHz; high-average power pumping; high-gain laser amplifier; high-power laser amplifier; multibounce optical path configuration; power 7.6 W; pulse energy; repetition rate; stimulated emission cross section; thermal fracture; wavelength 1.5 mum; Laser excitation; Optical fiber amplifiers; Pump lasers; Stimulated emission; Waveguide lasers;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO), 2012 Conference on

Conference_Location

San Jose, CA

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-1839-6

Type

conf

Filename

6326057