Wavelength-agile high-power sources via four-wave mixing in higher-order fiber modes

Frequency doubling of conventional fiber lasers in the near- infrared remains the most promising method for generating integrated high-peak-power lasers in the visible, while maintaining the benefits of a fiber geometry; but since the shortest wavelength power-scalable fiber laser sources are currently restricted to either the 10XX nm or 15XX nm wavelength ranges, accessing colors other than green or red remains a challenge with this schematic. Four- wave mixing using higher-order fiber modes allows for control of dispersion while maintaining large effective areas, thus enabling a power-scalable method to extend the bandwidth of near- infrared fiber lasers, and in turn, the bandwidth of potential high-power sources in the visible. Here, two parametric sources using the LP0,7 and LP0,6 modes of two step-index multi-mode fibers are presented. The output wavelengths for the sources are 880, 974, 1173, and 1347 nm with peak powers of 10.0, 16.2, 14.7, and 6.4 kW respectively, and similar to 300-ps pulse durations. The efficiencies of the sources are analyzed, along with a discussion of wavelength tuning and further power scaling, representing an advance in increasing the bandwidth of near-infrared lasers as a step towards high-peak-power sources at wavelengths across the visible spectrum. (C) 2017 Optical Society of America