Highly adaptable gain-switched fiber laser with improved efficiency

A highly adaptable fiber laser with pulse-on-demand and precision pulse-duration tuning is presented. It is based on a compact optical design combining the gain-switching technique with the all-fiber master oscillator and pump-recovery amplifier architecture. The approach of laser-pulse stability control by compensation pumping and pulse-duration control by changing the pump wavelength are introduced. In order to prove the concept, a laser setup capable of producing laser pulses with an average power of up to 30 W and a peak power of approximately 1 kW at an improved efficiency and an arbitrary repetition rate is presented.