Generation of Pulsed Fiber Laser: ns to fs domain

Abstract

Recently fiber lasers have become an indispensable tool in scientific endeavors as well as in multifarious industrial applications. While high power continues wave fiber lasers delivering hundreds of watts to killo-watts of average power are being used in manufacturing and strategic sectors for cutting, welding, additive manufacturing and directed energy applications, pulsed fiber lasers operating in the kHz repetition rate and nano-second pulse duration with pulse energies from micro-joule to mille-joule are being used for marking and engraving applications. These pulses are usually obtained from a Q-switched master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) fiber laser or by amplifying a gain-switched laser diode to suitable pulse energy and power. Apart from this class of pulsed fiber lasers, mode-locked fiber lasers which now a days can deliver a very large variety of pulse duration ranging from femto-seconds to micro-seconds, are used for more precise and novel applications such as marking/ engraving on reflecting/ transmitting materials, nonlinear wavelength conversion, label free nonlinear microscopy, novel pump sources and also for study of various pulse dynamics [1, 2].