High-power wavelength-combined cladding-pumped Tm-doped silica fibre lasers

Summary form only given. Cladding pumping of fibre lasers is generating much interest as a route to high output power with the attraction of a geometry allowing simple thermal management. The waveguiding properties of the core can be easily tailored to ensure a single-spatial-mode output free from the problem of thermal lensing which has hindered brightness-scaling in conventional 'bulk' solid-state laser sources.Here we present preliminary results for a wavelength-combined Tm-doped silica fibre system with 11 W output power in the 2 /spl mu/m spectral region. Tm-doped silica fibre lasers offer excellent potential for power-scaling via this route owing to a very broad linewidth (>300 nm) and relatively high lasing efficiencies.