In 2013, we continued our studies on Raman fiber laser/amplifier and mode locked fiber laser, and development of lasers for guide star and cold atom physics.
We found a method for power scaling of single mode linearly polarized Raman fiber laser. In a proof of principle experiment, an output power of 300 W has been achieved, limited by available power. In the single frequency Raman fiber amplifier direction, we have achieved more than 80 W at 1178 nm in the CW case and more than 120 W in the QCW long pulse case. Consequently, after frequency doubling, more than 50 W CW and 80 W QCW (peak power) laser at 589 nm have been demonstrated. With these results, we are confident that power scaling of Raman fiber amplifier based guide star laser to over 100 W is feasible.
We are always interested in applying our expertise in wavelength flexible high power narrow linewidth fiber amplifier to atomic physics. In this year, we have scale the room temperature 1014.8 nm single frequency fiber amplifier to ~ 20 W, and carried out the frequency doubling and quadrupling experiment to 253.7 nm, and absorption and Doppler-free absorption spectral measurement of mercury atoms.
Together with Prof. Gu of Ryerson University, we also studied mode locked Yb fiber lasers with chirped FBGs, and demonstrated dual wavelength switchable dissipative soliton fiber laser and studied the effect of large normal and anomalous dispersion.