Watt-level wavelength-tunable Er³⁺/Dy³⁺ codoped fluoride fiber laser around 3 μm

Abstract

Compact and robust wavelength-tunable mid-infrared fiber lasers are urgently needed in the fields of spectroscopic sensing, polymer processing, and free-space communications. In this work, we experimentally reported a high-power wavelength-tunable Er³⁺/Dy³⁺ codoped fluoride fiber laser by diode clad pumping at 974 ​nm. Adopting a ruled diffraction grating, the laser wavelength could be continuously tuned in the region of 2854 ​nm–3510 nm (656 ​nm) based on the ⁶H_13/2 ​→ ​⁶H_15/2 transition of Dy³⁺, where 3510 ​nm represented the longest wavelength achieved from a Dy³⁺-doped fluoride fiber laser. Within the wide range of 3018 ​nm–3331 nm (312 ​nm), the output power was always kept at >1 ​W, with the maximum power of 1.75 ​W obtained at 3181 ​nm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first watt-level wavelength-tunable fiber laser in the region of >3 ​μm. Further scaling the power and expanding the tuning range are expected by increasing the pump power while protecting the pumped fiber end.

Keywords

Fiber laser / Mid-infrared / Wavelength-tunable

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Fei Liu: Writing–original draft. Xiang-Yu Zhao: Data curation, Methodology. Hong-Yu Luo: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Writing–review & editing, Supervision. Hao Chen: Formal analysis. Hao Zhang: Visualization. Long-Feng Zhou: Validation. Wen-Song Li: Resources. Yong Liu: Project administration.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgment

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 62475035.

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