单晶光纤具有细长的晶体结构以及对泵浦光的波导传输特性，使其兼具晶体以及光纤的激光放大介质优点，其细长的晶体结构可以有效地进行散热，保证了在高功率运转下依然可以保证高光束质量，与传统的晶体棒相比，对泵浦光的波导特性使其具有更大的能量提取效率和放大增益，简单的行波放大结构使得系统易于集成。单晶光纤作为放大增益介质已广泛应用于高功率高能量超短脉冲激光放大技术中，并在科研、工业加工等领域具有重要的应用前景。本文重点介绍了单晶光纤的结构和制备方法，以及近年来1 μm波段基于单晶光纤的超短脉冲放大技术研究的主要方法及结果，包括本课题组取得的主要进展，探讨和展望了单晶光纤放大技术的前景和发展方向。

The population trapping effect of the F34 level is an important factor limiting the power scaling of the 2.3 μm thulium (Tm) laser on the H34→H35 transition. In this Letter, we demonstrate a novel scheme of ground state absorption (GSA) (H36→H34) and excited state absorption (ESA) (F34→H34) dual-wavelength pumped 2.3 μm Tm lasers. Introducing an ESA pumping process can accurately excite the Tm3+ ions accumulated in the F34 level to the H34 level, constructing a double populating mechanism for the upper laser level H34. A proof-of-principle experimental demonstration of the GSA (785 nm) and ESA (1470 nm) dual-wavelength pumped 2.3 μm Tm:LiYF4 (Tm:YLF) laser was realized. A maximum continuous-wave output power of 1.84 W at 2308 nm was achieved under 785 and 1470 nm dual-wavelength pumping, increased by 60% compared with the case of 785 nm single-wavelength pumping under the same resonator condition. Our work provides an efficient way to achieve higher output power from 2.3 μm Tm-doped lasers on the H34→H35 transition.

Structured ultrashort-pulse laser beams, and in particular eigenmodes of the paraxial Helmholtz equation, are currently extensively studied for novel potential applications in various fields, e.g., laser plasma acceleration, attosecond science, and fine micromachining. To extend these prospects further, in the present work we push forward the advancement of such femtosecond structured laser sources into the 2-μm spectral region. Ultrashort-pulse Hermite– and Laguerre–Gaussian laser modes both with a pulse duration around 100 fs are successfully produced from a compact solid-state laser in combination with a simple single-cylindrical-lens converter. The negligible beam astigmatism, the broad optical spectra, and the almost chirp-free pulses emphasize the high reliability of this laser source. This work, as a proof of principle study, paves the way toward few-cycle pulse generation of optical vortices at 2 μm. The presented light source can enable new research in the fields of interaction with organic materials, next generation optical detection, and optical vortex infrared supercontinuum.

We report on a high-power Ho:YAG single-crystal fiber (SCF) laser inband pumped by a high-brightness Tm-fiber laser at 1908 nm. The Ho:YAG SCF grown by the micro-pulling-down technique exhibits a propagation loss of $0.05\pm 0.005~\text{cm}^{-1}$ at $2.09~\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{m}$. A continuous-wave output power of 35.2 W is achieved with a slope efficiency of 42.7%, which is to the best of our knowledge the highest power ever reported from an SCF-based laser in the 2 $\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{m}$ spectral range.