Fiber Bragg grating inscription with UV femtosecond exposure and two beam interference for fiber laser applications

Martin Becker; Sven Brückner; Eric Lindner; Manfred Rothhardt; Sonja Unger; Jens Kobelke; Kay Schuster; Hartmut Bartelt

doi:10.1117/12.871009

22 September 2010 Fiber Bragg grating inscription with UV femtosecond exposure and two beam interference for fiber laser applications

Martin Becker, Sven Brückner, Eric Lindner, Manfred Rothhardt, Sonja Unger, Jens Kobelke, Kay Schuster, Hartmut Bartelt

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 7750, Photonics North 2010; 775015 (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.871009
Event: Photonics North 2010, 2010, Niagara Falls, Canada

Abstract

Fiber Bragg grating based fiber lasers are promising for stable all fiber laser solutions. Standard methods for fiber Bragg gratings in fiber lasers apply germanium doped passive fibers which are connected to the amplifier section of the fiber laser with a splice. The connection is usually recoated using a low-index polymer coating to maintain guidance properties for the pump light. At high pump powers the spliced connections are affected by absorbed pump light and are prone to thermal degradation. Fiber Bragg gratings made with femtosecond laser exposure allow the direct inscription of resonator mirrors for fiber lasers into the amplifying section of the fiber laser. Such a technology has a number of advantages. The number of splices in the laser cavity is reduced. Fiber Bragg grating inscription does not relay on hydrogenation to increase the photosensitivity of the fiber. This is of special interest since hydrogen loading in large mode area fibers is a time consuming procedure due to the diffusion time of hydrogen in silica glass. Finally, one gets direct access to fiber Bragg gratings in air-clad fibers. In this paper we use a two beam interferometric inscription setup in combination with an frequency tripled femtosecond laser for grating inscription. It allows to write fiber Bragg gratings in rare earth doped fibers with a reflection wavelength span that covers the Ytterbium amplification band. Reflections with values higher than 90% have been realized.

Citation Download Citation

Martin Becker, Sven Brückner, Eric Lindner, Manfred Rothhardt, Sonja Unger, Jens Kobelke, Kay Schuster, and Hartmut Bartelt "Fiber Bragg grating inscription with UV femtosecond exposure and two beam interference for fiber laser applications", Proc. SPIE 7750, Photonics North 2010, 775015 (22 September 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.871009

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