In this work, we present a high-power, high-repetition-rate, all-fiber femtosecond laser system operating at 1.5 $\unicode{x3bc}$ m. This all-fiber laser system can deliver femtosecond pulses at a fundamental repetition rate of 10.6 GHz with an average output power of 106.4 W – the highest average power reported so far from an all-fiber femtosecond laser at 1.5 $\unicode{x3bc}$ m, to the best of our knowledge. By utilizing the soliton-effect-based pulse compression effect with optimized pre-chirping dispersion, the amplified pulses are compressed to 239 fs in an all-fiber configuration. Empowered by such a high-power ultrafast fiber laser system, we further explore the nonlinear interaction among transverse modes LP₀₁, LP₁₁ and LP₂₁ that are expected to potentially exist in fiber laser systems using large-mode-area fibers. The intermodal modulational instability is theoretically investigated and subsequently identified in our experiments. Such a high-power all-fiber ultrafast laser without bulky free-space optics is anticipated to be a promising laser source for applications that specifically require compact and robust operation.

We firstly report a 2-μm all-fiber nonlinear pulse compressor based on two pieces of normal dispersion fiber (NDF), which enables a high-power scaling ability of watt-level and a high pulse compression ratio of 13.7. With the NDF-based all-fiber nonlinear pulse compressor, the 450-fs laser pulses with a repetition rate of 101.4 MHz are compressed to 35.1 fs, corresponding to a 5.2 optical oscillation cycle at the 2-μm wavelength region. The output average power reaches 1.28 W, which is believed to be the highest value never achieved from the previous 2-μm all-fiber nonlinear pulse compressors with a high pulse repetition rate above 100 MHz. The dynamic evolution of the ultrafast pulse inside the all-fiber nonlinear pulse compressor is numerically analyzed, matching well with the experimental results.

非线性脉冲压缩技术是提升高功率全固态超快激光器性能,获得更短脉宽、更高峰值功率超短脉冲激光的重要手段。非线性脉冲压缩依靠克尔效应引起的自相位调制和之后的啁啾补偿来实现。本文介绍了近年来非线性脉冲压缩方法的研究进展并展望了发展前景。