Though the term “Ultrafast Fiber Laser” sounds like a complicated sophisticated system in itself, ultrafast fiber laser is a fundamental building block of many photonics systems used in industrial and medical applications and also for scientific research projects. In this blog, we will discuss what an ultrafast fiber laser is in detail.

Introduction to Ultrafast Fiber Laser

What is an ultrafast fiber laser? Ultrafast fiber laser refers to the laser emitting optical pulse with an ultrashort duration of the order of picoseconds or femtoseconds.

Based on the mode-locking technique, ultrafast fiber lasers have recently become more popular and successful due to the advancements in the field of photonics.

Thus, with ultrafast fiber laser, it is now possible to generate very short-duration light pulses ranging between a few femtoseconds and tens of attoseconds.

These types of lasers allow the direct analysis and control of electrons and atoms, and hence, are going to play a huge role in the field of science and technology in the upcoming years.

In general, the working of lasers is based on two principles:

When the light is amplified in the excited gain medium, it leads to the generation of an intense laser beam which is sent to the feedback of the cavity which transmits partially.

In the same way, ultra-short pulses are produced when light waves with a higher number of modes (or integer multiples of half the wavelength of light waves) are discharged coherently across the in-phase superposition. This technique is called mode-locking.

The two important parameters of ultrafast fiber lasers are:

In addition to the pulse duration and PPR, other parameters that are often discussed include:

Peak Power is calculated by dividing pulse energy by pulse duration, while Average Power is calculated by multiplying pulse energy by pulse repetition rate.

For a couple of decades, Ti: sapphire lasers were considered the gold standard for being cutting-edge femtosecond lasers and offering the best spectral quality. However, everyone wants an alternative to these lasers as they are free-space lasers that require to be aligned and they are highly expensive.

Fortunately, fiber optics technology is making strides for the past decade in ultra-short pulse achievements. Consequently, pulse energies of greater than 100 microJoules are now available for commercial ultrafast fiber lasers.

Ultrafast fiber lasers are more practical than traditional Ti: sapphire lasers and offer ease of use, simplicity, long life, high efficiency, compact design, and are available at relatively modest prices.