Diode-pumped laser with Yb:YAG single-crystal fiber grown by the micro-pulling down technique
Résumé
Laser emission obtained from an Yb:YAG single-crystal fiber directly grown by the micro-pulling down technique is demonstrated for the first time. We achieved 11.2 W of continuous wave (CW) output power at 1031 nm for 55 W of incident pump power at 940 nm. In the Q-switched regime, we obtained pulses as short as 17 ns, for an average power of 2.3 W at 2 kHz corresponding to an energy of 1.15 mJ. In both cases, the M 2 factor was 2.5. This single-crystal fiber showed performance similar to a standard rod elaborated by the Czochralski method. The potential of Yb3+-doped single-crystal fibers is presented for scalable high-average and high-peak-power laser systems.