Characterization of coupling of pump fluctuations to laser in mode-locked Yb-doped and Er-doped fiber oscillators

Transfer of fluctuations of pump power to laser power is characterized for mode-locked fiber oscillators. Contribution of pump noise to laser noise is estimated. Limits to pump modulation bandwidth for carrier-envelopephase stabilization are briefly discussed. © 2010 Optical Society of America

Influence of pump noise and modulation on in-fiber amplification of broadband pulses

We investigate experimentally and theoretically the coupling of pump laser modulation and noise fluctuations to the output power of a fiber amplifier for broadband pulse trains using the modulation transfer function approach. © 2010 Optical Society of America

Influence of modulation of pump and seed signals on fiber amplification of broadband pulses

We report on characterization of the transfer of pump and seed signal modulations, including noise, during fiber amplification. We demonstrate experimentally and theoretically that pump (signal) modulations are transferred only below (above) a cut-off frequency. © 2010 Optical Society of America

Intensity noise of mode-locked fiber lasers

Intensity noise of mode-locked fiber lasers is characterized systematically for all major mode-locking regimes over a wide range of parameters. We find that equally low-noise performance can be obtained in all regimes. Losses in the cavity influence noise strongly without a clear trace in the pulse characteristics. Given that high-energy fiber laser oscillators reported to date have utilized large output coupling ratios, they are likely to have had high noise. Instabilities that occur at high pulse energies are characterized. Noise level is virtually independent of pulse energy below a threshold for the onset of nonlinearly induced instabilities. Continuous-wave peak formation and multiple pulsing influence noise performance moderately. At high energies, a noise outburst is encountered, resulting in up to 2 orders of magnitude increase in noise. These results effectively constitute guidelines for minimization of the laser noise in mode-locked fiber lasers. © 2009 Optical Society of America

Application of a mode-locked fiber laser for highly time resolved broadband absorption spectroscopy and laser-assisted breakdown on micro-plasmas

Absorption spectroscopy is known to be a powerful tool to gain spatially and temporally resolved information on excited and reactive species in a plasma discharge. Furthermore, the interaction of the discharge with short intense laser pulses can trigger the ignition and the transition into other transient states of the plasma. In this context laser-assisted pump-probe experiments involving simultaneously generated supercontinuum radiation yield highly temporally resolved and spatially well-defined information on the transient phenomena. In this paper we demonstrate the possibility for pumpprobe experiments by initiating breakdown on a picosecond time scale (pump) with a high-power beam and measuring the broadband absorption with the simultaneously provided supercontinuum (probe). Since both pulses are generated from the same mode-locked master oscillator, they have a strong level of synchronization. © 2012 IOP Publishing Ltd