High-power efficient generation of visible and mid-infrared radiation exploiting four-wave-mixing in optical fibers

We report on the generation of 17.6W of visible radiation at 650nm using four-wave-mixing in an endlessly single-mode silica fiber. The conversion efficiency was as high as similar to 30%. This high efficiency could be obtained by exploiting the natural absorption of silica for the mid-infrared radiation >2.5 mu m. In a separate experiment 1.6W of mid-IR radiation at 2570nm were generated simultaneously with 14.4W at 672nm. These power levels of picosecond red radiation are among the highest reported so far for a diffraction limited beam quality in this wavelength region. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America