Ultra-Compact 50 W Flat Supercontinuum Generation in Single-Stage Self-Q-Switched Fiber Laser With Photonic Crystal Fiber

Abstract

An all-fiber supercontinuum (SC) laser source with 50.7 W average output power and spectrum ranging from 500 nm to 2400 nm is demonstrated. With the generation of high peak power nanosecond pulses and photonic crystal fiber (PCF) in the self-Q-switched fiber laser, the output SC shows good spectral width and flatness which has a 20 dB bandwidth of 1900 nm except the 1064 nm peak. The effect of the PCF length on the spectral characteristics and output power of SC were carefully studied. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest power of SC generated in a single-stage fiber laser with such a broadband spectrum. This ultra-compact SC generation method has the merits of simple structure, low cost and good robustness, which provide an easily available SC generation method for various practical applications.