Optics Communications 231 (2004) 357–364

www.elsevier.com/locate/optcom

High power 1.9 lm Tm3þ-silica fibre laser pumped

at 1.09 lm by a Yb3þ-silica fibre laser
Yuen H. Tsang, Daniel J. Coleman, Terence A. King *

Laser Photonics Research Group, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
Received 20 April 2003; received in revised form 17 September 2003; accepted 21 November 2003

Abstract

Wavelength conversion of the Yb3þ -silica fibre laser operating near 1.09 lm has been demonstrated by acting as a
direct pump source for a small scale Tm3þ -silica fibre laser to provide an output at 1.9 lm. The characterisation of the
Tm3þ -silica fibre laser is described; it operated with a threshold of 30 ± 20 mW, a slope efficiency of 27.2 ± 0.4% with
respect to the launched pump power and a maximum output power of 1.1 W. There is evidence of saturation in the
output power due to excited state absorption which suggests that the maximum achievable output power of this core-
pumped Tm3þ -doped fibre laser is approximately 2 W for 1.09 lm pumping.

2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Fibre laser; Yb; Ytterbium; Tm; Thulium; High power fibre; Wavelength conversion

1. Introduction ficiency [5]. The Tm-fluoride fibre laser has been

excited at 1.64 lm by a colour centre laser with
Tm-doped fibre lasers make compact and effi- 84% slope efficiency [6].
cient high power lasers sources. By utilising diode A potentially attractive source to pump the Tm-
laser pumping and double-clad Tm-doped fibres silica fibre is the Yb-silica fibre laser [7] which
continuous wave (cw) powers of several watts at 2 operates over
1.02 to
1.1 lm and is able to
lm have been achieved [1,2]. The Tm-silica fibre pump into the Tm (3 H5 ) level. Yb-silica fibre lasers
laser has been pumped in several absorption bands have been used previously to pump visible wave-
and with several different sources, these include length upconversion fibre lasers [8,9] and Ho-
diode laser excitation at 790 nm [1], at 1.064 lm [3] doped alumosilicate fibre laser [10]. The Yb-silica
and 1.319 lm [4] by the Nd:YAG laser and at 1.57 fibre can be excited efficiently by diode lasers at
lm by an Er-doped fibre laser with 71% slope ef-
980 or
915 nm and the Yb-fibre laser offers
comparable powers to diode arrays but with a
superior beam quality. Output powers of up to 500
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-161-275-4181; fax: +44-
W have been achieved from Yb-silica fibre sources
161-275-5509. operating at a wavelength of approximately 1.1 lm
E-mail address: [email protected] (T.A. King). [11]. These systems produce an output beam with

0030-4018/$ - see front matter
2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.optcom.2003.11.072
358 Y.H. Tsang et al. / Optics Communications 231 (2004) 357–364

an M 2 value of 1.04 at a wall-plug efficiency of 1

G4
20%. Even higher powers of 5 or 10 kW are
planned for development. It is to be expected that ESA 2
the Yb-fibre laser will become even more generally 3
F 2,3
available in the future. High power versions of the 3H
4
laser can be used for many applications, including
ESA 1 480 nm
thermal printing, marking and other materials 3H
processing applications. The features of high effi- 5

3
ciency, beam quality and power levels of Yb-fibre F 4
1.09 µm
lasers make them attractive laser pump sources for 2 µm
the pumping of other fibre laser systems to pro-
3H
duce alternative wavelengths. In addition, because 6

of the advances in fibre Bragg grating technology Fig. 1. Energy levels of the Tm3þ ion in silica.
[12] giving low coupling losses, efficient and com-
pact fibre-laser-pumped-fibre-laser systems can be
achieved. In this paper, efficient wavelength conversion is
Applications for 2 lm Tm-fibre lasers operating described from the high power 1.09 lm Yb-fibre
at around 2 lm include LIDAR and remote laser pumping to near 2 lm from a Tm-silica fibre
sensing of gases [13]. The laser also has a number laser giving an output of 1.1 W at an optical-
of potential applications in the medical field due to to-optical efficiency of approximately 10%. ESA at
the strong absorption of the 2 lm radiation in 1.09 lm is sufficiently low to make the Yb-doped
water and biological tissues. Incisions in porcine silica fibre laser a viable pump source for Tm3þ -
tissue and chicken breast have been recently doped silica fibre lasers of moderately high power.
demonstrated with a 1.98 lm continuous wave cw
Tm-doped silica fibre laser [14,15]. Also, the pen-
etration depth of 2 lm laser radiation matches 2. Laser systems
with the subcutaneous depth of the pain nerve
receptors in the skin such that the 2 lm Tm laser The experimental arrangement is shown in
makes an near-ideal source for experimental pain Fig. 2. A cw diode laser at 972  4 nm with a
research as the damage on the skin surface can be maximum power of 47 W was used as a pump
minimised [16,17]. Recently, tissue interactions source for the Yb-silica double-cladded fibre
with a Q-switched Tm-silica fibre laser have been (INO, Canada) to generate the fibre laser output
reported [18]. with a peak wavelength at
1092 nm. The Yb
The energy levels and relevant transitions of double-clad silica fibre had an inner cladding of
Tm3þ ions in silica are shown in Fig. 1. Pump ra- 300 lm distance between parallel planes of a
diation at a wavelength of 1.1 lm is absorbed into hexagonal geometry, with a silicone outer cladding
the 3 H5 level which quickly decays to the 3 F4 level (0.35 NA). The core was 25 lm in diameter, 0.14
through multiphonon decay. The laser transition NA, and the Yb content was 1.7 wt% (17,000
then take place between the 3 F4 and 3 H6 levels. ppm). The laser cavity was formed by using a
There are two pump induced excited state ab- mirror, which had
93% transmission at
970 nm
sorption (ESA) processes that can occur when the and reflectivity >99% at 1050–1150 nm, butted at
3
H5 level is pumped; these are label ESA1 (3 F4 – the pump end and
4% Fresnel reflection from the
3
F2;3 ) and ESA2 (3 H4 –1 G4 ) on Fig. 1. These ESA bare fibre output end. The length of the Yb fibre
processes are detrimental to laser operation at 2 was chosen to produce a lasing wavelength of 1.09
lm because energy is lost through transitions in- lm. This is on the long side of the Yb tuning range
volving the higher excited states. Blue fluorescence and the slope efficiency at this wavelength is
at 480 nm is generally expected from Tm-fibres somewhat lower than the StokesÕ efficiency. The
pumped in this band. slope efficiency and threshold, with respect to the
 Y.H. Tsang et al. / Optics Communications 231 (2004) 357–364 359

Fig. 2. Experimental arrangement for the Yb-fibre laser pumped Tm-fibre laser. M, monochromator; A, amplifier; PSD, phase sen-
sitive detector. The power meter was removed while measuring the wavelengths.

incident pump power, of the Yb pump laser were maximise the 2 lm output. On proper alignment of
29.4  0.3% and 5.34  0.03 W and it was able to the output coupler, laser operation at 2 lm readily
provide a maximum of
12 W incident pump occurred and the blue fluorescence from the fibre
power for the Tm-silica fibre laser system. reduced, since after threshold is reached, the 3 F4
The Yb-fibre laser was used for end-pumping a population inversion is fixed, increasing the pump
single-cladded Tm-silica fibre having a length of power leads to increased stimulated emission.
46.5 cm, a core diameter of 17 lm, a cladding di- Thus, less ESA results when the fibre is lasing than
ameter of 230 lm, a NA of 0.25 and a Tm3þ ion when it is not [19]. The 2 lm laser was collimated
concentration of 1.1 wt%. Both cleaved fibre ends (T > 99% at 2 lm) and sent through a Ge filter
were clamped on x–y–z differential micrometer onto a thermoelectric power meter. The Ge-filter
translation stages, which allowed fine and coarse used in the experiments blocked out almost all the
alignment. At the early stages of the alignment, the pump laser light. A Tm3þ fibre of length 42 cm was
x–y–z translation stages at both ends were con- found to give the best performance. Since 2 lm
tinuously adjusted throughout the experiment, in laser operation in the Tm-doped fibre is a three-
order to obtain the optimum
2 lm fluorescence level system, the optimal fibre lengths for the laser
signal detected by a computer controlled mono- should be just long enough to absorb the majority
chromator, and thus ensure the maximum amount of the pump light.
of pump power launched into the fibre core. The
Tm fibre laser cavity consisted of a pump end
mirror (R > 99% at 1850–2100 nm, T > 97% at 3. Results
1050–1150 nm) and an output coupler (R ¼ 50% at
1850–2100 nm). The position and orientation of The fluorescence spectrum from the Tm-silica
the pump end mirror was adjusted carefully to fibre when pumped at 1.09 lm is shown in Fig. 3
360 Y.H. Tsang et al. / Optics Communications 231 (2004) 357–364

25 30 1.4

25 1.2
20

Slope efficiency (%)

Threshold (W)
1
20
Intensity (A.U)

15 0.8
15
Slope efficiency 0.6
10 10 Threshold 0.4
5 0.2
5
0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100
0
1700 1800 1900 2000 2100 2200 Output coupler reflectivity (%)
Wavelength (nm)
-5 Fig. 5. Tm laser slope efficiency with respect to launched pump
power as a function of the output coupler reflectivity at the
Fig. 3. Output intensity of the single-pass Tm-silica fibre fluo- lasing wavelengths.
rescence source for 2.4 W incident pump power.

and a focusing objective lens, 10, NA 0.25. The

for the fibre with two bare ends (4–4%) and an NA of the Yb pump laser beam was measured to be
incident pumping power of about 2.4 W. The about 0.17 by using the scanning knife edge
FWHM of the fluorescence peak is 130 nm. method. This confirmed that the relatively low
Fluorescence from the 3 H4 –3 H5 transition at
2.3 launch efficiency is mainly due to the mismatching
lm following ESA was not observed from the end of the focused spot size to the core radius of the
of the fibre due to the low transmission of silica Tm-fibre. A maximum output power of more than
glass at this wavelength. 1.1 W was achieved using a HR-90% cavity. Since it
The output power of the Tm-fibre laser is shown is seen that the laser output power is not closely
in Fig. 4 for variation of the launched power. The linear with launched power, the laser threshold has
slope efficiencies and laser thresholds for a range of been determined by linear fitting the data near to
output coupler reflectivities are shown in Fig. 5. threshold, and the slope efficiency found by linear
The results shown in Figs. 4 and 5 are corrected for fitting the data within the linear region. The output
the loss in the Ge filter and the coupling losses. coupler reflectivities at the pump wavelengths are
Based on cutback measurements about 42% of the high in general (>80%). Fig. 5 shows that the
incident pump laser was launched into the fibre highest efficiency was achieved when output cou-
core. The focusing optics used were f ¼ 20 mm pler reflectivity at the laser wavelength is around
plano-convex lens as collimator, with NA
0.22 70%, at which the lasing threshold is about 30 mW

1.2 2080
2060
1
Output power (W)

2040
Wavelength (%)

0.8 2020
0.6 2000
1980
0.4
1960
0.2 1940
0 1920
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
1900
Launched Power (W) 0 20 40 60 80 100
Output coupler reflectivity (%)
Fig. 4. Output power of the Tm-doped fibre laser, with respect
to the launched pump power, for a fibre length of 46.5 cm and Fig. 6. The ranges of lasing wavelengths of the Tm-silica fibre
90% out coupler reflectivities. laser for different output coupler reflectivities.
 Y.H. Tsang et al. / Optics Communications 231 (2004) 357–364 361

and the slope efficiency is 27.2 ± 0.4%. For output The time dependences of the output from the
coupler reflectivities P 50% the threshold was two sources were measured separately by an InAs
found to be below 100 mW. photodiode (Judson Model J12D) cooled by liquid
The output wavelengths for the full range of nitrogen and linked to a digital oscilloscope
output couplers is shown in Fig. 6. The repeat- (Tektronix TDS 120, 60 MHz), see Fig. 7, this
ability of these measurements was relatively low, system had a typical response time of <10 ns. Ge
indicating that the output wavelength was fluctu- and ND filters were used in front of the detector to
ating over time by ±10 nm (i.e. 0.8%). A similar attenuate the incident beam. The Yb3þ -fibre was
effect has also been reported in cladding pumped found to be self-pulsing chaotically as illustrated in
Tm3þ -silica fibres [20] The wavelength measure- Fig. 7.
ments show that the output shifts from
1.925 to

2.05 lm for 4% and 95% output coupling.
4. Discussion
4
The two ESA processes shown in Fig. 1 have a
detrimental effect on the operation of the Tm3þ
Intensity (A.U)

3
fibre laser. The cross-sections for GSA and the
2
processes ESA1 and ESA2 are shown in Fig. 8
[21]. It is considered that the best pump wave-
1
length for generating 480 nm output from
Tm:ZBLAN is in the range of 1120–1160 nm [22],
therefore we can expect some energy loss through
(a) 0 0 50 100 150 200 250 ESA at the pump wavelength of 1090 nm. When
the fibre is pumped at this wavelength, blue fluo-
7 rescence is clearly observable from the fibre.
6 Fig. 4 shows that there is a slight saturation
Intensity (A.U)

5 effect occurring in the output of the Tm3þ fibre

4 laser for 1090 nm pumping. This effect was not
3
observed for 1064 nm pumping and therefore it
2
seems likely that it is a result of ESA from the 3 H4
level (ESA2 on Fig. 1). The 3 H4 level is populated
1
by ESA from the 3 F4 level to the 3 F2;3 level (ESA1
(b) 0 0 50 100 150 200 250 on Fig. 1). The cross-section for ESA1 is larger for
pumping at 1064 nm compared with 1090 nm by a
factor of
2.5, see Fig. 8(b), however, the GSA
5
cross-section is smaller by approximately the same
Intensity (A.U)

factor. The GSA and ESA processes compete for

3 pump photons and therefore we do not expect a
large difference in the rate of ESA1 for 1064 and
1090 nm pumping. For pump powers above the
0 0
laser threshold, the population of the 3 F4 level is
50 100 150 200 250
(c) Time (µs)
fixed because it is the upper level of the laser
transition. This means that the rate of ESA1 will
Fig. 7. Output pulsations of the fibre lasers. (a) Yb fibre laser be greatly reduced when the fibre is lasing and,
operating at a laser power of approximately 2.3 W. (b) On the
since it scales linearly with pump power, it cannot
same relative intensity scale, the Yb fibre laser operating at a
the same output power of 2.3 W. Its detected peak power is be responsible for the saturation effect. The pop-
about double compared to (a). (c) Tm fibre laser output excited ulation of the 3 H4 level is not fixed under lasing
by the Yb-fibre laser of (a) and (b) operating at 0.4 W. conditions and therefore it will be increasing with
362 Y.H. Tsang et al. / Optics Communications 231 (2004) 357–364

pect ESA2 to have a significant effect for large

pump powers. However, the loss through ESA
does not prevent the 1.09 lm wavelength being an
effective pump wavelength for the 2 lm Tm3þ
transition, as demonstrated by the slope efficiency
of 27%.
Previously, the Tm-silica fibres lasing at 2 lm
have been pumped in the 3 H5 band with high
power Nd:YAG lasers operating at 1.064 lm [3]
and 1.319 lm [4]. Comparing the GSA cross-sec-
tion of Tm3þ with 1.09 lm pumping of 27  2 ·
1027 m2 , which is found from cut-back experi-
ments, to the other two wavelengths, it is about
nine times larger with respect to the 1.319 lm
pumping (3.0 ± 0.3 · 1027 m2 ) and approximately
double with respect to 1064 nm pumping [21].
This indicates that the optimal fibre lengths for
1.09 lm pumping should be shorter and lead to a
lower lasing threshold in general. The maximum
slope efficiencies demonstrated with respect to
1.064, 1.09 and 1.319 lm pumping are, respec-
tively, 37% (with respect to absorbed power) [3],
27% (with respect to launched power – in this case
the launched power is close to the absorbed
power) and
30% (with respect to launched
power) [4]. The StokesÕ efficiency is the laser effi-
ciency in the specific case where each pump pho-
ton absorbed in the gain medium results in one
photon output through stimulated emission. It is
equal to the ratio of the energy of the pump
photons to the output photons and in this system
it represents the maximum achievable slope effi-
ciency. The StokesÕ efficiencies for pumping at
1064, 1090 and 1319 nm are 53%, 54% and 65%,
respectively. In general one pump photon does not
result in one laser photon. The ratio of pump
Fig. 8. Absorption cross-sections in Tm3þ -silica: (a) GSA, 3 H6 –
3
H5 , (b) ESA1, 3 F4 –3 F2;3 , (c) ESA2, 3 H4 –1 G4 [22].
photons to stimulated emission photons is known
as the internal quantum efficiency. The corre-
sponding internal quantum efficiencies achieved
increasing pump power. The rate of ESA from the for 1.064 lm [3], 1.09 and 1.319 lm [4] pumping
3
H4 level to the 1 G4 level, ESA2, therefore be- were approximately 70%, 50% and 46%. This
comes increasing larger as the pump power goes suggests that 1.09 lm pumping in the 3 H5 band
up. Fig. 8(c) shows that the cross-section for ESA2 has more photon loss due to ESA compared to
at 1090 nm is considerably higher than for ESA2 1.064 lm pumping.
at 1064 nm therefore, we would expect more ESA The optimised length for pumping at 1.319 lm in
into the 1 G4 level for 1090 nm pumping. The this fibre has been found to be 3.1 m and the
cross-section for ESA2 is also much higher than threshold with respect to the launched power is
the GSA cross-section at 1090 nm, so we can ex-
600 mW [4]. Note that the Tm-doped silica fibre
 Y.H. Tsang et al. / Optics Communications 231 (2004) 357–364 363

used for the experiments in this study and in [4] is Acknowledgements

from the same fabrication so that direct comparison
can be made. In spite of the low losses (
4% Fresnel Funding has been provided from the Engi-
reflection from the output coupler used in the ex- neering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
perimental set-up) the optimised fibre lengths and The authors thank Ashraf El-Sherif for construc-
laser threshold are high at 1.319 lm in comparison tive comments.
with those for 1.09 lm pumping. This is due to the
lower GSA cross-section with 1.319 lm pumping.
The origin of self-pulsation in fibre lasers is an
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