High-power 1.7-micron all-fiber laser
Technical Field
The invention relates to the field of fiber lasers, in particular to a high-power 1.7 mu m all-fiber laser.
Background
1.7 μm has special spectral properties and spectral positions, the CH bond has a strong absorption peak at this band and water absorbs very little there, and furthermore this band is located more in the mid-infrared band than in conventional 1550nm communications. Therefore, the wave band optical fiber laser has excellent application prospect and wide market value in the fields of Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), laser medical treatment, femtosecond photon microscopic imaging, laser processing, femtosecond optical frequency comb and the like.
With the potential of the fiber laser light source in this band being recognized in recent years, it is becoming one of the research focuses of special wavelength lasers. A number of international and well-known optoelectronics research institutions such as the university of south ampton, arizona, russia academy of science, etc. in the united kingdom, the western anlight institute, the national defense sciences, the university of catharanthics, etc. have studied 1.7 μm fiber lasers. In 2017, a Western-style light-mounted machine base on thulium-doped quartz optical fiber realizes the laser output of 1.7 mu m continuous optical fiber, the output power is 3W, and the laser output is the highest power value reported by the laser output of the optical fiber in the wave band at present. However, the power value cannot meet the application requirements of the band fiber laser in the fields of laser processing, laser medical treatment and the like.
At present, thulium-doped silica fiber is the most commonly used gain fiber material for 1.7 μm fiber laser. But due to the silica fiber Tm3+The ion fluorescence center wavelength is generally near 1860nm, and 1.7 μm is generally located at the tail of the fluorescence spectrum, which causes two problems easily occurring in the realization of 1.7 μm short wavelength operation based on thulium-doped silica fiber: the signal light is reabsorbed and the signal light gain is saturated. In addition, the current fiber grating device with the wave band of 1.7 μm has lower bearing power. These greatly limit the output power of 1.7 μm band continuous fiber laser in thulium-doped quartz fiber lasers. With the increasing urgent needs of the industry for continuous laser in the 1.7 μm band and applications, how to increase the output power of the optical fiber laser in this band is one of the problems to be solved urgently in this field
Disclosure of Invention
The invention provides a high-power 1.7 mu m all-fiber laser, which can effectively solve the problems of reabsorption and signal light gain saturation of signal light, lower bearing power of a fiber grating device with a wave band of 1.7 mu m and the like, and greatly improves the output power of all-fiber continuous laser with the wave band of 1.7 mu m.
The technical scheme adopted by the invention is as follows:
the high-power 1.7 mu m all-fiber laser comprises a first pumping source, a first isolator, a first Bragg fiber grating, a gain fiber, a second Bragg fiber grating, a wavelength division multiplexer, a band-pass filter, a coupler, a second pumping source and a second isolator; wherein the gain optical fiber adopts Tm/Tb co-doped quartz optical fiber;
the first pump source provides forward pump light, and the first pump source, the first isolator, the first Bragg fiber grating and the gain fiber are sequentially welded; the second pumping source provides backward pumping light, and the second pumping source, the second isolator, the wavelength division multiplexer, the second Bragg fiber grating and the gain fiber are sequentially welded; wherein the beam combining end of the wavelength division multiplexer is welded with the second Bragg fiber grating, the pumping end of the wavelength division multiplexer is welded with the second isolator, the signal injection end of the wavelength division multiplexer is welded with one end of the band-pass filter, the other end of the band-pass filter is welded with the coupler, and high-power 1.7 mu m laser is output through the coupler.
Based on the above scheme, the invention further optimizes as follows:
optionally, the first pump source and the second pump source are both erbium-doped fiber lasers, the output wavelength of the erbium-doped fiber lasers is 1556nm, and the output power of the erbium-doped fiber lasers is 0-50W.
Optionally, the first isolator and the second isolator operate at 1550nm, and have 50dB isolation.
Optionally, the working wavelength of the first bragg fiber grating is 1710nm, the full width at half maximum is 0.1nm, the reflectivity at the central wavelength is greater than 99.9%, and the damage threshold is greater than 50W; the working wavelength of the second Bragg fiber grating is 1710nm, the full width at half maximum is 0.1nm, the reflectivity at the central wavelength is 10% -30%, and the damage threshold is larger than 50W.
Optionally, the gain fiber is Tm/Tb co-doped silica fiber and comprises a core layer and a cladding layer, wherein Tm is in the core layer3+Has a doping concentration of 3000ppm and Tb in the cladding layer3+The doping concentration was 500 ppm.
Further preferably, the core layer comprises the following formula components in percentage by mass: tm (thd)3:0.3%、SiCl4:30~50%、GeCl4:5~20%、SiF4:10~20%、POCl3:10~20%、AlCl3: 5-10%, the formula of the cladding comprises the following components: tb (thd)3:0.05%、SiCl4:30~50%、GeCl4:5~20%、SiF4:10~20%、POCl3:10~20%、AlCl3:5~10%。
Optionally, the core cladding structure of the gain optical fiber is: cladding layer-125 μm, core layer-9 μm, length 1-10 m, optical fiber transmission loss: 20dB/km @1556nm and 25dB/km @1710 nm.
Optionally, the working band of the band-pass filter is 1700-1720 nm, and the isolation is greater than 25 dB.
The invention adopts a bidirectional pumping structure, a first pumping source provides forward pumping light, a second pumping source provides backward pumping light, and a laser resonant cavity is formed by a straight cavity between a first high-reverse Bragg fiber grating and a second high-reverse Bragg fiber grating; the front and back pumping light is introduced into the gain optical fiber through the isolator and the wavelength division multiplexer to form laser oscillation in the resonant cavity, and then the laser oscillation passes through the filter and finally is output through the coupler. The two isolators are used for preventing the pump source from being damaged by the reflected pump light; the function of the band-pass filter is to filter out the ASE in the backward and forward pump light and laser signal which are not completely absorbed by the gain fiber.
The invention has the following beneficial effects:
1. the invention adopts a pump source with the output wavelength of 1556nm to carry out co-band pumping, adopts a bidirectional pumping structure, realizes the high-power 20W-level 1.7 mu m continuous fiber laser output based on the novel Tm/Tb co-doped quartz fiber, and has high laser slope efficiency and high signal-to-noise ratio.
2. The invention adopts the Tm/Tb co-doped quartz fiber as the gain fiber material, and the fluorescence center wavelength of the Tm/Tb co-doped quartz fiber is near 1710nm of the signal laser wavelength, so that the phenomena of reabsorption and signal light gain saturation which are easily caused in the process of realizing short-wavelength 1.7 mu m laser operation by using the traditional Tm-doped quartz fiber can be effectively solved; meanwhile, important optimization is carried out, so that the optimal balance point of the optical fiber gain and the fluorescence center wavelength is obtained, and the optimal laser output effect is realized.
3. The fiber laser provided by the invention is of an all-fiber structure, has a simple structure, excellent compactness and good laser output stability, and is very suitable for later-stage packaging and integrated development.
4. The Bragg fiber grating adopted by the invention has high damage threshold and is very suitable for being used as high-power 1.7 mu m fiber laser output.
Description of the drawings:
fig. 1 is a structural diagram of a high-power 1.7 μm all-fiber laser of the present invention.
Fig. 2 is a graph of the output laser spectrum achieved by the present invention.
Fig. 3 is a graph of laser slope efficiency.
Detailed Description
The present invention will be described in further detail with reference to the following examples and the accompanying drawings.
Referring to fig. 1, the high-power 1.7 μm all-fiber laser provided by the present invention mainly comprises a pumping source 1, an isolator 2, a bragg fiber grating 3, a gain fiber 4, a bragg fiber grating 5, a wavelength division multiplexer 6, a filter 7, a coupler 8, an isolator 9, and a pumping source 10. The pump source 1 is welded with one end of the isolator 2, and one end of the Bragg fiber grating 3 is welded with the other end of the isolator 2; the other end is welded with the gain fiber 4, and one end of the Bragg fiber grating 5 is welded with the other end of the gain fiber 4; the other end of the fiber Bragg grating 5 is welded with the beam combining end of the wavelength division multiplexer 6; the pumping end of the wavelength division multiplexer 6 is welded with one end of an isolator 9, and the other end of the isolator 9 is welded with a pumping source 10; the signal injection end of the wavelength division multiplexer 6 is welded with one end of the filter 7, and the other end of the filter 7 is welded with the coupler 8.
The pumping source 1 and the pumping source 10 can adopt erbium-doped fiber lasers produced by IPG company, the output wavelength of the erbium-doped fiber lasers is 1556nm, and the output power of the erbium-doped fiber lasers is 0-50W; the working wave bands of the isolator 2 and the isolator 9 are 1550nm, and the isolation is 50 dB; the working wavelength of the Bragg fiber grating 3 is 1710nm, the full width at half maximum is 0.1nm, the reflectivity at the central wavelength is more than 99.9%, and the damage threshold is more than 50W; the working wavelength of the Bragg fiber grating 5 is 1710nm, the full width at half maximum is 0.1nm,the reflectivity at the central wavelength is between 20 percent, and the damage threshold is more than 50W; the gain optical fiber 4 is a Tm/Tb co-doped silica optical fiber manufactured by a laboratory, and the core cladding structure is as follows: cladding-125 μm, core-9 μm, length 5m, fiber transmission loss: 20dB/km @1556nm and 25dB/km @1710 nm; doping of core layer with Tm3+In the cladding layer doped with Tb3+Except for separately doped Tm3+、Tb3+Besides, the core layer formula comprises the following other components in percentage by mass: SiCl4:30~50%、GeCl4:5~20%、SiF4:10~20%、POCl3:10~20%、AlCl3: 5-10%, and the other components of the cladding formula are as follows: SiCl4:30~50%、GeCl4:5~20%、SiF4:10~20%、POCl3:10~20%、AlCl3: 5 to 10 percent. The filter 7 is a band-pass filter, the band-pass working band is 1700-1720 nm, and the isolation degree is greater than 25 dB.
A bidirectional pumping structure is adopted, a pumping source 1 provides forward pumping light, a pumping source 10 provides backward pumping light, and a laser resonant cavity is formed by a linear cavity between a Bragg fiber grating 3 and a Bragg fiber grating 5; the front and back pump light is introduced into the gain fiber 4 through the isolators 2 and 9 and the wavelength division multiplexer 6, and 1710nm fiber laser oscillation is formed in the resonant cavity, and then the pump light is output through the filter 7 and the coupler 8. Wherein the function of the isolators 2, 9 is to prevent the pump source from being damaged by the reflected pump light; the function of the band-pass filter is to filter out the ASE in the backward and forward pump light and laser signal which are not completely absorbed by the gain fiber.
TABLE 1 Tm/Tb codoped silica fiber doping concentration test
Optical fiber sequence number
|
Tm3+Doping concentration (ppm)
|
Tb3+Doping concentration (ppm)
|
Maximum output power (W)
|
Maximum laser slope efficiency
|
1
|
1000
|
500
|
10.3
|
30.2%
|
2
|
1000
|
1000
|
8.7
|
24.6%
|
3
|
2000
|
500
|
15.2
|
45.7%
|
4
|
2000
|
1000
|
12.4
|
35.6%
|
5
|
3000
|
500
|
24.7
|
60.1%
|
6
|
3000
|
1000
|
14.8
|
42.2%
|
7
|
4000
|
500
|
18.1
|
50.4%
|
8
|
4000
|
1000
|
13.1
|
38.7% |
The gain optical fiber material adopted by the embodiment is a novel Tm/Tb co-doped silica optical fiber, and compared with the traditional Tm-doped silica optical fiber, the fluorescence center wavelength of the Tm-doped silica optical fiber is near 1710nm of the signal laser wavelength, so that the phenomena that the signal light is easily reabsorbed and the signal light gain is saturated in the short-wavelength 1.7 mu m laser operation process realized by utilizing the traditional Tm-doped silica optical fiber can be effectively solved. The Bragg fiber grating adopted by the invention has high damage threshold and is very suitable for being used as high-power 1.7 mu m fiber laser output. As shown in Table 1, different experimental results were obtained by performing laser output experiments using Tm/Tb co-doped silica fibers with different doping concentration ratios in the examples. After repeated experimental optimization and corresponding theoretical analysis, when Tm is3+And Tb3+The doping concentrations were 3000ppm and 500ppm (converted to mass percentage Tm (thd))3:0.3%、Tb(thd)3: 0.05%), the Tm/Tb co-doped silica fiber obtains the best balance point of the fiber gain and the fluorescence center wavelength, and the best laser output result is obtained in the experiment.
As shown in fig. 2, in the present embodiment, a pump source with an output wavelength of 1556nm is used for in-band pumping, and a bidirectional pumping structure is adopted, so that a 20W-level 1.7 μm continuous fiber laser output with high power is realized based on a novel Tm/Tb co-doped silica fiber with a length of 5m, the output power is 24.7W, the laser slope efficiency is 60.1% (see fig. 3), and the signal-to-noise ratio is 50 dB. The fiber laser in the embodiment is of an all-fiber structure, has a simple structure, excellent compactness and good laser output stability, and is very suitable for later-stage packaging and integrated development.