IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO.
3, MAY/JUNE 2018
A 1150-W 1018-nm Fiber Laser Bidirectional
Pumped by Wavelength-Stabilized Laser Diodes
Ping Yan, Xuejiao Wang , Zehui Wang , Yusheng Huang, Dan Li
Abstract—This paper presented a high-power 1018-nm
ytterbium-doped fiber laser pumped by wavelength-stabilized laser
diodes in bidirectional pumping structure. A record output power
reaching 1150 W was achieved, along with a slope efficiency of
82.9% and a beam quality factor of M2 = 1.96. The output spec-
trum exhibited an efficient amplified spontaneous emission and
parasitic lasing light suppression. The thermal effects were studied
to verify the reliability of our 1018-nm FL as a practical 1-kW
light source. Besides, an important investigation was made on the
1080-nm fiber laser tandem pumped by 1018-nm fiber lasers, the
experimental result of which was reported to be 3712 W.
Index Terms—Optical fiber lasers, lasers, Ytterbium.
I. INTRODUCTION
OWADAYS high power fiber lasers (FLs) with their out-
N standing advantages have been widely used in many indus-
trial, military and scientific applications [1]–[3]. For a FL, the
pumping configuration is of critical importance, which can be
divided into two major categories: direct-pumping configuration
[4], [5] and tandem-pumping configuration [6], [7]. As far as we
know, the highest power of single output fiber was reported by
IPG in 2009 based on the tandem-pumping, taking advantage of
the relatively short wavelength (1000–1030 nm) FLs employed
as the pump source in tandem-pumping to reduce the quantum
defect in the active fiber, which leads to less thermal load and
larger pumping capacity [8]. Hence, the tandem-pumped FLs
have the potential to raise the output power limit [9]. Conse-
quently, rising attention has been paid by researchers world-
wide to achieve higher output power of these short wavelength
FLs, especially 1018 nm ytterbium-doped fiber laser (YDFLs)
[10]–[14].
Nevertheless, the short wavelength FLs currently face some
technical difficulties, such as serious laser re-absorption, fierce
gain competition with amplified spontaneous emission (ASE)
and parasitic lasing. In order to overcome these obstacles, the op-
Manuscript received June 8, 2017; revised November 25, 2017; accepted
February 9, 2018. Date of publication February 19, 2018; date of current ver-
sion March 6, 2018. This work was supported in part by the National Science
Foundation of China under Grant 61675114 and in part by Tsinghua University
Initiative Scientific Research Program under Grant 20151080709. (Correspond-
ing author: Qirong Xiao.)
The authors are with the Center for Photonics and Electronics, Depart-
ment of Precision Instrument, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
(e-mail: pyan@tsinghua.edu.cn; xj-wang13@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn; wangzh16
@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn; 512870830@qq.com; dli@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn;
xiaoqirong08@gmail.com; GongMali@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSTQE.2018.2805801
1077-260X © 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
0902506
, Qirong Xiao , and Mali Gong
timization oscillator parameters is needed. Our group has been
studying on high power short wavelength YDFLs for a long
time and reached several achievements. In 2016, we presented
a 805 W 1018 nm FL pumped by non-wavelength-stabilized
(NWS) laser diodes (LDs) with an efficiency of 64.9% and a
521 W 1018 nm FL pumped by wavelength-stabilized (WS) LDs
with an efficiency of 82.8% [14]. Both of the FLs mentioned
above were pumped in forward direction. Generally, the pump-
ing configuration of FL can be divided into three categories,
namely forward pumping, backward pumping, and bidirectional
pumping. Obviously, the bidirectional pumping structure can
achieve a more even distribution of the pump power in the ac-
tive fiber, reducing thermal load while increasing laser power
with high beam quality. However, the realization of the bidirec-
tional pumping structure poses high demands on coupler, which
also explained why almost all the 1018 nm FLs are restricted in
the forward pumping configuration [10]–[13].
In this paper, on the base of our previous works, we pre-
sented a 1018 nm YDFL pumped by WS LDs in bidirectional
pumping structure with a record high output power reaching
1150 W, along with a slope efficiency of 82.9%. To the best of
our knowledge, this is the highest power of 1018 nm YDFL with
a high efficiency. Particularly, the technique of our home-made
(1 + 1) × 1 coupler was improved to achieve a higher efficiency
and reliability of the bidirectional pumping structure. 750 W WS
LDs whose central wavelengths were locked at 976 nm were
applied in experiment to ensure an adequate pumping absorp-
tion. The output results exhibited an efficient unwanted light
suppression and indicated potential for higher power scaling.
Further, the thermal analysis in the 1018 nm FL was performed,
proving its reliability as a practical kW level FL. Besides, an
important investigation was made on a 1080 nm fiber amplifier
tandem-pumped by four 1 kW 1018 nm FLs. The 75 W seed
laser power was successfully amplified to 3712 W with a to-
tal of 4002 W pump light, corresponding to a slope efficiency
of 90.0%.
II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
The experimental setup of the 1018 nm YDFL is illustrated
schematically in Fig. 1. The laser oscillator was composed of a
double cladding ytterbium-doped fiber (YDF), a pair of 1018 nm
fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs), pumping sources and home-made
couplers. Since a higher core/cladding ratio of the gain fiber
contributes to ASE suppression, a 30 μm core and 250 μm
inner cladding gain fiber was used. The numerical aperture
(NA) of the core and the inner cladding was 0.05 and 0.46,
0902506 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2018
Fig. 1. The experimental setup of the 1018 nm YDFL pumped by WS 976 nm
LDs (1 - 750 W WS DILAS LD; 2 - (1 + 1) × 1 coupler; 3 - 1018 nm FBG; 4
-30/250 μm YDF; 5 – QBH; 6 - beam splitter; 7 - power meter; 8 - spectrometer).
Fig. 2. The theoretical results of 1018 nm YDFL signal power versus the
length of the gain fiber and the reflectivity of the OC FBG in the case of forward
pump power of 750 W and the backward pump power of 750 W.
respectively. The cladding absorption coefficient of this gain
YDF was 6.3 dB/m @976 nm. We focused on the bidirectional
pumping structure and showed the details of optimization for the
first time. Specifically, we analyzed the impact of some param-
eters, including the length of the gain fiber and the reflection of
the out-coupling (OC) FBG on the 1018 nm FL performance in
the case of forward pump power of 750 W and backward pump
power of 750 W, as depicted in Fig. 2. In order to guarantee a
high output power as well as an efficient ASE suppression, the
length of the gain fiber was designed to be 3.2 m. In addition,
the radius of the gain fiber was coiled to be about 5 cm to real-
ize the beam quality control. Clearly, the reflectivity of the OC
FBG has a better impact on the output power in the range of
10% to 40%. Accordingly, the reflectivity of the high-reflecting
(HR) FBG and OC FBG employed in Fig. 1 were chosen to
be 99.9% and 13.6%, with a 3 dB bandwidth of 2.2 nm and
0.79 nm, respectively. Particularly, two 750 W WS LDs (DI-
LAS) were used in Fig. 1. Each LD operated within the drive
current ranging from 5 A to 50 A. The pigtail fiber of the LD
has a size of 200/220/360 μm. Different from other commonly
used commercial LDs, the special structure of the WS LDs con-
fined the pump light more than 99% within the fiber core region.
The pump light was coupled into the oscillator via our home-
made (1 + 1) × 1 couplers from both forward and backward
directions. It should be noted that the fundamental of a success-
ful realization of bidirectional pumping structure depends on
the quality of the (1 + 1) × 1 coupler [15], [16], while it faces
with great difficulties, especially in 1018 nm fiber laser. This
is because that more unabsorbed pump light induced by shorter
Fig. 3. The schematic diagram of the eroding fiber and the measurement of
the pump power loss ( 1 - pigtail of WS LD;  2 - the input pump fiber of the
3 - the input signal fiber of the coupler; 
coupler;  4 - the output signal fiber of
the coupler).
gain fiber and unmatched wavelength of LD at low driven cur-
rent may be back coupled into the coupler, which is harmful
to LD and other components. More importantly, the fiber with
30/250 μm is employed in coupler, indicating the core could be
deformed easily in the proceeding of the manufacturing and fur-
ther resulting in loss of the signal power. To solve this, we had
refined the manufacturing techniques of the side-pump coupler.
Specifically, we greatly improved the accuracy of the fixtures in
the proceeding to ensure the faultless control over the param-
eters of the taper region and the refractive index valley (RIV)
configuration. Also, the system had been optimized to guarantee
the precision of the heated temperature. Through these effective
measures, the (1 + 1) × 1 coupler with excellent performances,
including lower backward pump coupling efficiency, kW level
handling power, higher signal and pump coupling efficiency
and higher stability [17] was successfully realized. However,
the size of the input pump fiber of the (1 + 1) × 1 coupler were
220/242 μm. Thus, in order to match the geometrical specifi-
cation of the input pump fiber of the (1 + 1) × 1 coupler, the
output end fibers of the WS LDs were eroded by using hydr-
fluoric acid (HF). The acid etching method reduces the size of
cladding with the rough surface, as shown in Fig. 3, while pre-
serves the core size. After erosion, the pump light loss came
from two parts, i.e., the erosion and fusion splicing loss and the
coupler loss. The measurement of both loss versus drive cur-
rent is shown in Fig. 4. The region marked in yellow in Fig. 4
represented the pump light loss caused by erosion and fusion
splice, which was calculated to be 8.4% by measuring the pump
power after the fusion splice and before the coupler. Similarly,
the region marked in red in Fig. 4 that stands for the pump loss
caused by coupler was 1.4% by measuring the pump power after
the coupler. Clearly, the main pump light loss resulted from the
unmatched fiber splicing. By contrast, the pump light coupling
loss took up merely a small fraction of the total loss, proving
that the efficiency of our (1 + 1) × 1 coupler had made a spliced
to the significant progress. An output quart block head (QBH)
was spliced to the output end of the oscillator, decreasing the
damage of the end surface of the fiber and suppressing backward
reflections.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The usage of high power WS LDs promised a high output
power and a high efficiency of 1018 nm YDFL. Fig. 5 de-
picted the output performance of the 1018 nm YDFL. The output
YAN et al.: 1150-W 1018-NM FIBER LASER BIDIRECTIONAL PUMPED BY WAVELENGTH-STABILIZED LASER DIODES 0902506

Fig. 4. The pump power at different measurement points versus the driven
current.

signal power arrived at 1150 W when a maximum pump power

of 1447 W was launched into the oscillator, corresponding to
a slope efficiency of 82.9%. The curve of the output signal
laser power versus the launched pump power was depicted in
the Fig. 5(a). From the curve, two conclusions could be drawn.
First, the output laser power curve did not show any sign of
saturation, indicating the potential for further power scaling.
Besides, the efficiency shown in the bar graph increased rapidly
at low pump power level and then maintained around 80% at
high pump power. This was due to the fact that although the
pump sources applied in our experiment was wavelength stabi-
lized, the output spectrum was not perfectly locked at 976 nm
at low driven current. As the drive current rose, the output spec-
trum of LD gradually shifted to 976 nm, as plotted in Fig. 6,
implying a better pumping performance. The output spectrum Fig. 5. The output properties (a) signal power versus the launched pump power
of the 1018 nm YDFL at 1150 W is plotted in Fig. 5(b) which and (b) spectrum (inset: the intensity distribution transmission of the beam) of
the 1150 W 1018 nm YDFL.
centered at 1018.9 nm. The resolution of the spectrum analyzer
was set to be 0.1 nm and the 3 dB bandwidth of the spectrum
was 0.30 nm. It was evident that no ASE, parasitic lasing and
unabsorbed light was spotted in the spectrum, indicating an effi-
cient unwanted light suppression. In addition, the beam quality
of the output laser was measured to be M 2 = 1.96 by a beam
quality analyzer (PRIMES high-power laser-quality monitor).
The beam intensity distribution along the transmission path was
shown in the inset of Fig. 5(b).
In fact, FL at 1 kW power level usually has a central
wavelength of 1064 nm. Therefore, based on a set of simpli-
fied steady-state rate equations and thermal conductive equa-
tions [18], [19] the temperature distribution along gain fiber
of 1064 nm FL under the same thermal management was also
studied as comparison, as shown in Fig. 7(b). The pump power
of 1500 W was launched into the oscillator in bidirectional
pumping configuration. The gain fiber has a size of 20/400 μm
and a length of 15 m. The cladding absorption coefficient was
1.26 dB/m @976 nm. Despite the absorption coefficient of the
gain fiber in 1064 nm FL was one fifth as that in 1018 nm FL, the Fig. 6. The output spectrums of the 750 W WS LDs at different driven current.
0902506 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2018

Fig. 8. The experimental setup of the 1080 nm fiber amplifier in 1018 nm

tandem-pumping structure (1–72.6 W 1080 nm seed laser; 2–combination of
the two 1 kW 1018 nm YDFLs; 3-(2 + 1) × 1 coupler; 4–30/250 μm YDF; 5 –
the QBH; 6 - DM; 7 - power meter 1; 8 - power meter 2).

Fig. 7. The temperature distribution under thermal management (cooling tem-

perature 20 °C) of (a) 1018 nm FL and (b) 1064 nm FL.

temperature distribution in 1064 nm FL was only slightly lower Fig. 9. The output properties of the output signal power versus the launched
than that of 1064 nm FL owing to the much lower quantum loss pump power of the 1080 nm fiber amplifier pumped by 1018 nm FLs.
in 1018 nm FL. Thus, our 1018 nm FL has the capability to
function properly at 1 kW in practice.
Besides the role as an individual light source, the 1018 nm
FL was more important in tandem pumping FLs as the pumping
sources. So we made experimental investigation on a 1080 nm
fiber amplifier tandem-pumped by four 1 kW 1018 nm FLs as
depicted in Fig. 8. The gain fiber used in the amplifier has a core
and inner cladding diameter of 30/250 μm. The NA of the core
and the inner cladding was 0.063 and 0.46, respectively. The
cladding absorption coefficient was measured to be 0.39 dB/m
@1018 nm. The length of the gain fiber in amplifier was 40 m to
ensure an adequate pump absorption. The output signal power
performance was plotted in the Fig. 9. The 75 W seed laser power
was successfully amplified to 3712 W with a total of 4002 W
pump light, corresponding to a slope efficiency of 90.0%. The
output spectrum under different pump power was also shown
in Fig. 10 and the 3 dB bandwidth of the spectrum at 3.7 kW
was 2.6 nm. Although there was some unwanted pump light,
it can be ignored due to the peak-to-peak suppression higher
than 20 dB. Further, the beam quality of the output laser was Fig. 10. The spectrum of the tandem-pumped amplifier with the different
measured to be factor βFL = 1.785 by the method in Ref. [20]. pump power.
YAN et al.: 1150-W 1018-NM FIBER LASER BIDIRECTIONAL PUMPED BY WAVELENGTH-STABILIZED LASER DIODES
Nowadays, the short wavelength FLs have played an increas-
ingly important role in fiber laser field owing to their outstanding
characteristics, especially as the pumping sources in tandem-
pumping structure. There is no doubt that further power scal-
ing of FLs calls for more pump power launched via couplers.
Hence, the increasing output power of a single 1018 nm FL
pump source would relieve the pressure imposed on coupler
technology, which is of high importance to high power tandem
pumping FL system.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an 1150 W output power of 1018 nm YDFL
in bidirectional pumping structure with a slope efficiency of
82.9% was displayed. The output spectrum showed an efficient
unwanted light suppression. As far as we know, this is the high-
est power of 1018 nm YDFL with a high efficiency that has
been published. Specifically, the improvement of the technol-
ogy of our homemade couplers provided a great guarantee for
the stability of the bidirectional pumping structure. The WS
LDs were employed as the pumping sources in our experiment,
which played an important role in the results. Meanwhile, the
thermal analysis on 1018 nm FL was carried out to verify the
reliability in practice. More importantly, an investigation was
made on the application of the 1kW level 1018 nm YDFLs as
pumping sources for a 1080 nm tandem-pumped amplifier. The
75 W seed laser power was successfully amplified to 3712 W
with a total of 4002 W pump light, corresponding to a slope
efficiency of 90.0%. In sum, the realization of 1018 nm FL with
high output of 1150 W and a high efficiency is meaningful to
high power fiber laser field.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
P. Yan would like to thank Y. Shen for his help in data
processing.
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Ping Yan received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees
in optical engineering from the Beijing Institute of
Technology, Beijing, China, in 1986, 1989, and 1992,
respectively.
She is currently a Professor with Tsinghua Uni-
versity, Beijing, China. Her current research inter-
ests include fiber lasers, high-power solid state lasers,
high-power laser technique, and fiber laser pump cou-
plers. She is a member of Chinese Optical Society and
Chinese Opto-Electrical Technology Committee.
Xuejiao Wang received the B.S. degree in opti-
cal information technology and technique from the
Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China, in
2013. She is currently working toward the Ph.D. de-
gree in optical engineering at Tsinghua University,
Beijing, China. Her current research interests include
the beam propagation and quality of high-power fiber
laser.
Zehui Wang received the B.S. degree in optical in-
formation technology and technique from the Beijing
Institute of Technology, Beijing, China, in 2016. He is
currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in optical
engineering at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
His current research interests include fiber laser pump
couplers and the theory and experiment of high power
fiber lasers.
0902506 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2018
Yusheng Huang received the B.S. degree in opti-
cal information technology and technique from the
Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China, in
2014. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. de-
gree in optical engineering at Tsinghua University,
Beijing, China. His current research interests include
narrow linewidth fiber laser and mode instability in
fiber laser.
Dan Li received the B.S. degree in chemical physics
from the University of Science and Technology of
China, Hefei, China, in 2003, and the Ph.D. degree
in physics from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China,
in 2008, where she is currently an Assistant Profes-
sor. Her research interests include atomic and molec-
ular physics, laser spectroscopy, optical precision
measurements, and fiber optics.
tional SPIE, Chinese Optical Society, and Chinese Institute of Electronics.
Qirong Xiao received the B.S. degree in optical engi-
neering from Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing,
China, in 2008, and the Ph.D. degree in optical en-
gineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China,
in 2012, where he is currently an Assistant Professor.
His research interests include fiber lasers, fiber am-
plifiers, fiber laser pump couplers, and optical fiber
sensors. He is a member of Chinese Optical Society.
Mali Gong received the B.S. degree in optical en-
gineering from Huazhong University of Science and
Technology, Wuhan, China, in 1982, the M.S. de-
gree in electro-optical engineering from the Univer-
sity of Electronic Science and Technology of China,
Chengdu, China, in 1984, and the Ph.D. degree in op-
tical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing,
China, in 1989, where he is currently a Professor.
His research interests include solid-state lasers, high-
power fiber lasers, laser detection, and laser beam
quality improvement. He is a member of Interna-