Hybrid Er/Yb fibre laser system for generating few-cycle 1.6 to 2.0 mm pulses optically synchronised with high-power pulses near 1 μm

This paper presents the concept of fibre laser system design for generating optically synchronised femtosecond pulses at two, greatly differing wavelengths and reports experimental and numerical simulation studies of nonlinear conversion of femtosecond pulses at 1.5 μm wavelength in a dispersion-shifted fibre, with the generation of synchronised pulses in the ranges 1.6 – 2 and 1 – 1.1 μm. We describe a three-stage high-power fibre amplifier of femtosecond pulses at 1 μm and a hybrid Er/Yb fibre laser system that has enabled the generation of 12 fs pulses with a centre wavelength of 1.7 μm, synchronised with high-power (microjoule level) 250 fs pulses at 1.03 μm.