Five key technologies and development trends of all-fiber lasers

Special fiber technology

All fiber lasers need to use a variety of special fibers such as double-clad active fiber, double-clad photosensitive fiber, energy transmission fiber, etc. As the output power continues to increase, the The technical requirements of optical fibers are getting higher and higher. Therefore, the development of special optical fibers will play an important role in the development of fiber lasers. A new generation of special fibers represented by photonic crystal fibers will gradually be applied in the development of fiber lasers. The development of special fibers will make active fibers have higher gain, higher power density, and more effective absorption of pump light; it will make the production of gratings easier, and the stability of the gratings will be better. The use of lasers is more extensive; it will enable energy transmission fibers to transmit higher power, high-power lasers can be transmitted longer distances, and the wavelength range that can be transmitted continues to expand; it will make pump coupling easier to achieve and bearable The pump power is higher, the loss is smaller, and so on.

Clad pump coupling technology

The cladding pump coupling technology of all-fiber lasers has an immeasurable effect on determining the performance and level of fiber lasers. The fiber pump coupling devices and fiber power combining devices used for high-power all-fiber lasers are used under very high power conditions. The coupling efficiency must be very high, the loss must be small, and the power must be large, and, The number of input light paths needs to be as many as possible. Under so many extreme conditions, it is very difficult to produce high-quality pump coupling devices and power combining devices. However, the implementation methods are also diverse, which is a challenging technology. From the perspective of the development trend of high-power all-fiber lasers, it is also required that the pump coupling device couples the pump light to the inner cladding without affecting and damaging the core of the double-clad fiber as much as possible, because only in this way can it not affect the core of the double-clad fiber. In the case of signal laser generation and transmission, cascade pumping is realized to achieve super-high power output.

Fiber grating technology

In all-fiber lasers, the current role of fiber grating is to reflect the signal laser in the core to form a resonant cavity. However, with the further development of fiber laser technology Fiber gratings will have new uses in fiber lasers, which poses new challenges to the manufacturing technology of fiber gratings. One of the directions worthy of attention is the production of high-quality fiber gratings on large-diameter multimode fibers.

Diode pump laser technology

Diode pump laser is a key component of fiber laser, which is crucial to the reliability, life and production cost of the fiber. The development of a single wide light emission Regional long-life diode pumped lasers have become a trend of diode pumped lasers for fiber lasers. Continuously increasing the output power of a single laser, continuously reducing costs and further improving reliability are the key points. Among them, improving and innovating the packaging structure should be the core work. , Because the current packaging cost is still very high.

Fiber laser machine technology

The whole machine design and production of all-fiber laser involves more knowledge, content, technology, craftsmanship, and experience. It is the design and production of all-fiber laser The core and most critical technology, especially today when the development history of new high-power all-fiber lasers is quite short, and there is still a lot of groundbreaking work to be done. The design and production of the entire fiber laser machine requires not only a reasonable design for the application, but also the responsibility of the improvement and innovation of the whole machine structure and scheme, and the improvement and innovation of all important components and key technologies.