Continuous wave Fe²⁺:ZnSe mid-IR optical fiber lasers

Coco, Michael G., Aro, Stephen C., McDaniel, Sean A., Hendrickson, Alexander, Krug, James P., Sazio, Pier J., Cook, Gary, Gopalan, Venkatraman and Badding, John V. (2020) Continuous wave Fe²⁺:ZnSe mid-IR optical fiber lasers. Optics Express, 28 (20), 30263-30274. (doi:10.1364/OE.402197).

Abstract

Today fiber lasers in the visible to near-infrared region of the spectrum are well known, however mid-infrared fiber lasers have only recently approached the same commercial availability and power output. There has been a push to fabricate optical fiber lasers out of crystalline materials which have superior mid-IR performance and the ability to directly generate mid-IR light. However, these materials cannot currently be fabricated into an optical fiber via traditional means. We have used high pressure chemical vapor deposition (HPCVD) to deposit Fe2+:ZnSe into a silica optical fiber template. These deposited structures have been found to exhibit laser threshold behavior and emit CW mid-IR laser light with a central wavelength of 4.12 μm. This is the first reported solid state fiber laser with direct laser emission generated beyond 4 μm and represents a new frontier of possibility in mid-IR laser development.+

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Contributors

Author: Pier J. Sazio

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