Passively cooled 405 W ytterbium fibre laser utilising a novel metal coated active fibre

Daniel, Jae M.O., Simakov, Nikita, Hemming, Alexander, Clarkson, W.A. and Haub, John (2016) Passively cooled 405 W ytterbium fibre laser utilising a novel metal coated active fibre. Proceedings of SPIE, 9728, [972808]. (doi:10.1117/12.2210887).

Abstract

We present a novel metal coated triple clad active fibre design, utilising an all glass inner cladding structure and aluminium outer coating. This metal coated active fibre enables a number of benefits to high power laser design, such as increase robustness and extended operating temperature range. As a demonstration of the advantages of this design a passively cooled ytterbium fibre laser is presented. A 20 m length of active fibre was coiled into a planar arrangement and mounted onto a high emissivity heatsink. Up to 405 W of output power was achieved without the need for active water or forced air cooling. The slope efficiency of this source was 74 % and maximum outer heat sink temperature was ~140°C. This arrangement allowed for significant weight and size savings to be achieved with the active fibre laser head weighing less than 100 g. We will discuss the design choices and trade-offs of metal coated active fibre on high power fibre laser systems as well as the prospects for further power scaling to the kW level.

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