RESEARCH ARTICLE

Pump quantum efficiency optimization of 3.5 µm Er-doped ZBLAN fiber laser for high-power operation

  • Lu Zhang 1,2 ,
  • Shijie Fu , 1,2 ,
  • Quan Sheng , 1,2 ,
  • Xuewen Luo 1,2 ,
  • Junxiang Zhang 1,2 ,
  • Wei Shi , 1,2 ,
  • Jianquan Yao 1,2
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  • 1. Institute of Laser and Optoelectronics, School of Precision Instrument and Optoelectronics Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
  • 2. Key Laboratory of Opto-Electronic Information Technology, Ministry of Education, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
shijie_fu@tju.edu.cn
shengquan@tju.edu.cn
shiwei@tju.edu.cn

Received date: 23 Aug 2023

Accepted date: 12 Oct 2023

Copyright

2023 The Author(s) 2023

Abstract

976 nm + 1976 nm dual-wavelength pumped Er-doped ZBLAN fiber lasers are generally accepted as the preferred solution for achieving 3.5 µm lasing. However, the 2 µm band excited state absorption from the upper lasing level (4F9/24F7/2) depletes the Er ions population inversion, reducing the pump quantum efficiency and limiting the power scaling. In this work, we demonstrate that the pump quantum efficiency can be effectively improved by using a long-wavelength pump with lower excited state absorption rate. A 3.5 µm Er-doped ZBLAN fiber laser was built and its performances at different pump wavelengths were experimentally investigated in detail. A maximum output power at 3.46 µm of ∼ 7.2 W with slope efficiency (with respect to absorbed 1990 nm pump power) of 41.2% was obtained with an optimized pump wavelength of 1990 nm, and the pump quantum efficiency was increased to 0.957 compared with the 0.819 for the conventional 1976 nm pumping scheme. Further power scaling was only limited by the available 1990 nm pump power. A numerical simulation was implemented to evaluate the cross section of excited state absorption via a theoretical fitting of experimental results. The potential of further power scaling was also discussed, based on the developed model.

Cite this article

Lu Zhang , Shijie Fu , Quan Sheng , Xuewen Luo , Junxiang Zhang , Wei Shi , Jianquan Yao . Pump quantum efficiency optimization of 3.5 µm Er-doped ZBLAN fiber laser for high-power operation[J]. Frontiers of Optoelectronics, 2023 , 16(4) : 33 . DOI: 10.1007/s12200-023-00089-w

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