Compact high power mid-infrared optical parametric oscillator pumped by a gain-switched fiber laser with "figure-of-h" pulse shape

We demonstrate a compact high power mid-infrared (MIR) optical parametric oscillator (OPO) pumped by a gain-switched linearly polarized, pulsed fiber laser. The gain-switched fiber laser was constructed with a piece of Yb doped polarization maintaining (PM) fiber, a pair of fiber Bragg gratings written into the matched passive PM fiber and 6 pigtailed pump laser diodes working at 915 nm with 30 W output peak power each. By modulating the pulse width of the pump laser diode, simple pedestal-free pulse shape or pedestal-free trailing pulse shape ("figure-of-h" as we call it) could be achieved from the gain-switched fiber laser. The laser was employed as the pump of a two-channel, periodically poled magnesium oxide lithium niobate-based OPO system. High power MIR emission was generated with average output power of 5.15 W at 3.8 mu m channel and 8.54 W at 3.3 mu m channel under the highest pump power of 45 W. The corresponding pump-to-idler conversion efficiency was computed to be 11.7% and 19.1%, respectively. Experimental results verify a significant improvement to signal-to-idler conversion efficiency by using "figure-of-h" pulses over simple pedestal-free pulses. Compared to the master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) fiber laser counterpart, the presented gain switched fiber laser is more attractive in OPO pumping due to its compactness and simplicity which are beneficial to construction of OPO systems for practical MIR applications. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America