All-fiber millijoule energy and nanoseconds pulse operation of a high beam quality multi-stage pulse-pumped Yb-doped amplifier cascade

We report on an all fiber Master Oscillator Power Amplifier (MOPA) structured pulsed-pumped fiber-amplifier seeded by laser diode and modulated by current with an output of several nanojoule energy at 100 Hz repetition rate. To suppress ASE, pulse-pumped technology was adopted in four stages of amplification. By means of this technology, repetition could be adjusted freely without change of pump current which is different from continuous pump. 80 μJ output was achieved in 18 ns pulses in the 15 μJ amplification stage. Moreover, we achieved over 1.2 mJ/pulse with pulses of 10 ns between 1 Hz to 100 Hz repetition in the 30 μm core amplification stage with output beam quality of M ² = 1.4. Energy was limited by launched pump power.