METHODS AND APPARATUS PERTAINING TO PICOSECOND PULSED FIBER BASED LASERS

摘要

A pulsed fiber laser apparatus for outputting picosecond laser pulses comprising a fiber delivered pulsed seed laser for providing picosecond optical seed pulses, and at least one optical fiber amplifier in optical communication with the fiber delivered pulsed seed laser. The optical fiber amplifier comprises a gain optical fiber that receives and optically amplifies picosecond optical pulses by operating in a nonlinear regime wherein the picosecond optical pulses can be spectrally broadened by a factor of at least 8 during amplification thereof. The apparatus further comprises a pulse compressor apparatus in optical communication with the optical fiber amplifier providing compressed picosecond optical pulses. The pulse compressor apparatus provides a dispersion of at least 50ps/nm and a compression ratio of the time duration of the picoseconds optical pulses received by the pulse compressor apparatus to the time duration of the compressed picosecond optical pulses of no greater than about 50.