All-fiber high repetition rate microfluidic dye laser

Optofluidic dye lasers may play a significant role in future laser applications in numerous areas, combining wavelength flexibility with integration and ease of operation. Nevertheless, no all-fiber integrated dye lasers have been demonstrated so far. In this paper, we report on a series of optofluidic all-fiber Rhodamine optical sources operating at a repetition rate as high as 1 kHz. Dye bleaching is avoided by circulating the Rhodamine dye during optical excitation. The laser radiation is extracted via conventional fibers that are spliced to the dye-filled capillary active medium. A tuneable amplified spontaneous emission source, a multimode laser, and a few transverse-mode laser are demonstrated by adjusting the setup. Threshold pump energies as low as similar to 1 mu J and slope efficiencies of up to mu 9% were obtained, indicating the potential for realworld applications in areas such as spectroscopy and biomedicine. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America