Abstract

For the first time, to the best of our knowledge, laser cooling is reported in a silica optical fiber. The fiber has a 21-µm diameter core doped with 2.06 wt.% ${{\rm Yb}^{3 + }}$ and co-doped with ${{\rm Al}_2}{{\rm O}_3}$ and ${{\rm F}^ - }$ to increase the critical quenching concentration by a factor of 16 over the largest reported values for the Yb-doped silica. Using a custom slow-light fiber Bragg grating sensor, temperature changes up to $ - {50}\;{\rm mK}$ were measured with 0.33 W/m of absorbed pump power per unit length at 1040 nm. The measured dependencies of the temperature change on the pump power and the pump wavelength are in excellent agreement with predictions from an existing model, and they reflect the fiber’s groundbreaking quality for the radiation-balanced fiber lasers.

© 2020 Optical Society of America

Experimental comparison of silica fibers for laser cooling

Jennifer Knall, Magnus Engholm, John Ballato, Peter D. Dragic, Nanjie Yu, and Michel J. F. Digonnet
Opt. Lett. 45(14) 4020-4023 (2020)

Radiation-balanced silica fiber laser

J. Knall, M. Engholm, T. Boilard, M. Bernier, P.-B. Vigneron, N. Yu, P. D. Dragic, J. Ballato, and M. J. F. Digonnet
Optica 8(6) 830-833 (2021)

Demonstration of anti-Stokes cooling in Yb-doped ZBLAN fibers at atmospheric pressure

Jennifer Knall, Arushi Arora, Martin Bernier, Solenn Cozic, and Michel J. F. Digonnet
Opt. Lett. 44(9) 2338-2341 (2019)

Laser cooling by over 7 K in Yb-doped ZBLAN fibers with high-power pumping at atmospheric pressure

Qingnan Xie, Daxing Rao, Guangze Yu, Fujian Li, Xianghe Guan, Wei Feng, Lailin Ji, Yong Cui, Yanqi Gao, and Zhan Sui
Opt. Lett. 48(5) 1148-1151 (2023)

Laser cooling experiments to measure the quantum efficiency of Yb-doped silica fibers

Brian Topper, Alexander Neumann, Alexander R. Albrecht, Angel S. Flores, Stefan Kuhn, Denny Häßner, Sigrun Hein, Christian Hupel, Johannes Nold, Nicoletta Haarlammert, Thomas Schreiber, Mansoor Sheik-Bahae, and Arash Mafi
Opt. Lett. 47(14) 3608-3611 (2022)