Tapered erbium-doped fibre laser system delivering 10 MW of peak power

We consider a fibre laser system generating ~10-μJ, ~500-fs pulses with a peak power of ~10 MW at a repetition rate of 100 kHz and emission wavelength of 1.56 μm. The system is based on a master oscillator–power amplifier configuration. The amplifier ensures chirped-pulse amplification. The pulses are then compressed by a dispersive grating compressor. The output amplifier stage is based on a specially designed tapered large mode area erbium-doped fibre for suppressing nonlinear effects. The experimental data agree with numerical simulation results for the stretcher, amplifier and compressor. The stretcher and amplifier have been simulated using a generalised nonlinear Schrödinger equation. In addition, numerical simulation results suggest that optimising the stretcher and compressor will potentially allow the peak power of the system to be scaled up to ~30 MW.