Direct generation of watt-level yellow Dy3+-doped fiber laser

Yellow lasers (similar to 565-590 nm) are of tremendous interest in biomedicine, astronomy, spectroscopy, and display technology. So far, yellow lasers still have relied heavily on nonlinear frequency conversion of near-infrared lasers, precluding compact and low-cost yellow laser systems. Here, we address the challenge through demonstrating, for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, watt-level high-power yellow laser generation directly from a compact fiber laser. The yellow fiber laser simply consists of a Dy3+-doped ZBLAN fiber as gain medium, a fiber end-facet mirror with high reflectivity at yellow and a 450-nm diode laser as the pump source. We comprehensively investigated the dependence of the yellow laser performance on the output coupler reflectivity and the gain fiber length and demonstrated that the yellow fiber laser with an output coupler reflectivity of 4% and a gain fiber length of similar to 1.8 m yields a maximum efficiency of 33.6%. A maximum output power of 1.12 W at 575 nm was achieved at a pump power of 4.20 W. This work demonstrated the power scaling of yellow Dy3+-doped ZBLAN fiber lasers, showing their promise for applications in ophthalmology, astronomical exploration, and high-resolution spectroscopy. (C) 2021 Chinese Laser Press

Automated summary

The research team successfully demonstrated watt-level high-power yellow laser generation using Dy3+-doped ZBLAN fiber. They found that the reflectivity of the output coupler and the length of the gain fiber have significant impacts on the performance of the yellow laser, achieving a maximum efficiency of 33.6% and a maximum output power of 1.12 W. The study shows the potential of yellow Dy3+-doped ZBLAN fiber lasers in ophthalmology, astronomical exploration, and high-resolution spectroscopy applications.