Abstract
Presented herein is the use of an ultrafast Si-based variable optical attenuator (VOA) as a Q-switch for rare earth-doped fiber lasers. The ultrafast VOA is based on a forward-biased p-i-n diode integrated with a ridge waveguide, which was originally designed and optimized for WDM channel power equalization in optical communication systems. By incorporating a Si-based VOA with a transient time of ~410 ns into an erbium-doped fiber-based Fabry-Perot cavity it has been shown that stable Q-switched pulses possessing a temporal width of less than ~86 ns can be readily obtained at a repetition rate of up to ~1 MHz. The laser’s peak power of ~38 W is shown to be obtainable at 20 kHz with a slope efficiency of ~21%.
©2011 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
Minwan Jung and Ju Han Lee
Appl. Opt. 52(12) 2706-2710 (2013)
You Min Chang, Junsu Lee, and Ju Han Lee
Opt. Express 19(27) 26627-26633 (2011)
Dengfeng Fan, Chengbo Mou, Xuekun Bai, Shaofei Wang, Na Chen, and Xianglong Zeng
Opt. Express 22(15) 18537-18542 (2014)