Development of high power holmium-doped fibre amplifiers

Resonantly pumped holmium fibre lasers present a range of opportunities for the development of novel fibre laser and amplifier devices due to the availability of mature, efficient high power thulium fibre pump lasers. In this paper we describe the operation of a large mode area holmium-doped fibre amplifier. The master-oscillator is an all-fibre linearly polarised, core pumped single mode laser operating at 27 W at 2.11 μm. This laser was amplified in a large mode area fibre producing up to 265 W of output power. This system is the first demonstration of a resonantly pumped holmiumdoped fibre amplifier. It is also the highest power fibre amplifier that is capable of operating in an atmospheric transmission window <2.05 μm. This monolithic all-fibre system is able to address a wide range of remote sensing, scientific, medical and defence applications