Tm:YAG single-crystal fiber laser

In this Letter, to the best of our knowledge, we present the first thulium (Tm) single-crystal fiber (SCF) laser with free-space propagation of the laser beam only. The SCF is equipped with diffusion-bonded end caps of undoped YAG for better thermal management and enhancement of pump guiding. By utilizing mode matching and pump guiding in different SCF parts, an output power of 9.1Wis achieved at similar to 2.02 mu m with a slope efficiency of 49.4%. This straightforward approach, which is also simple to realize and is based on combining the advantages of fiber-geometry structure and crystalline properties of Tm:YAG, is expected to be useful for 2 mu m amplification stages in different time formats aswell (C) 2021 Optical Society of America

Automated summary

In this Letter, the authors present the first thulium (Tm) single-crystal fiber (SCF) laser with free-space propagation of the laser beam, achieving an output power of 9.1W at 2.02 µm with a slope efficiency of 49.4% by utilizing mode matching and pump guiding in different SCF parts. This approach, based on combining the advantages of fiber-geometry structure and crystalline properties of Tm:YAG, is expected to be useful for 2 µm amplification stages in different time formats.