High power all fiber mid-IR supercontinuum generation in a ZBLAN fiber pumped by a 2 μm MOPA system

High power all fiber mid-IR supercontinuum (SC) generation in a ZBLAN fiber pumped by a 2 mu m master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) system is demonstrated. A semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) passively mode-locked laser with pulse width of 26 ps at 1960 nm is used as the seed of the MOPA system. A laser spectrum extending from similar to 1.9 mu m to beyond 2.6 mu m is generated in a subsequent thulium-doped fiber amplifier (TDFA). Then, the spectrum is further broadened to the mid-IR region in the ZBLAN fiber. A mid-IR SC extending from 1.9 to 3.9 mu m with 7.11 W average output power is obtained based on a large mode area TDFA, the SC power for wavelengths longer than 2.5 mu m is 3.52 W with a power ratio of 49.5% with respect to the total SC power. The overall optical conversion efficiency from the 790 nm pump of the large mode area TDFA to the total SC output is 10.4%. To the best of our knowledge, both the 7.11 W total average power and 3.52 W average power in wavelengths beyond 2.5 mu m are the highest power ever reported for a mid-IR SC generation in ZBLAN fiber pumped by 2 mu m fiber lasers and TDFAs. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America