Open AccessUltra low-noise coherent supercontinuum amplification and compression below 100 fs in an all-fiber polarization-maintaining thulium fiber amplifier
Author(s) -
Anupamaa Rampur,
Yuriy Stepanenko,
Grzegorz Stępniewski,
Tomasz M. Kardaś,
Dominik Dobrakowski,
Dirk-Mathys Spangenberg,
Thomas Feurer,
Alexander M. Heidt,
Mariusz Klimczak
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.27.035041
Subject(s) - supercontinuum , optics , ultrashort pulse , materials science , fiber laser , amplifier , relative intensity noise , polarization maintaining optical fiber , laser , optoelectronics , photonic crystal fiber , optical fiber , physics , fiber optic sensor , semiconductor laser theory , cmos
We report an ultra-low noise, polarization-maintaining, ultrafast Thulium-doped all-fiber chirped pulse amplifier, seeded by a polarized all-normal dispersion (ANDi) supercontinuum (SC) driven by an ultrafast Erbium-fiber laser. The system comprises only polarization-maintaining fibers and delivers 96 fs pulses with 350 mW output power at 100 MHz, centered at 1900 nm. The integrated relative intensity noise (RIN) in the range of 10 Hz - 10 MHz is only 0.047% at the amplifier output, which is virtually identical to the RIN of the Erbium-fiber laser driving the SC. Therefore, neither the SC generation nor the amplification process introduce significant excess noise. The RIN of our system is an order of magnitude lower than similar systems previously seeded with Raman solitons. This highlights the superior noise properties of ANDi SC and their potential as ultra-low noise seed sources for broadband, high power ultrafast fiber amplifiers and frequency combs.