Laserfaser

Laserfaser refers to an optical fiber that serves as the gain medium in a laser system. In fiber lasers, the core of the glass fiber is doped with rare-earth ions such as ytterbium, erbium, or thulium. When pumped with external light, typically from diode lasers, these ions provide amplification through stimulated emission, allowing the fiber itself to act as the lasing medium.

Most fiber lasers use a configuration in which the doped fiber is part of a resonator formed by fiber Bragg gratings or by an external cavity. To achieve high output powers, many designs employ cladding-pumped, double-clad fibers, in which pump light travels in a surrounding cladding while the signal light remains confined to the small core.

Beam quality can be high, especially in single-mode or few-mode fibers, making fiber lasers attractive for precision micromachining and scientific applications. Larger mode areas enable higher power handling, albeit with tradeoffs in beam quality and nonlinear effects.

Advantages of laserfaser systems include compactness, scalability in power, good efficiency, and straightforward coupling to fiber delivery systems. Heat is distributed along the length of the fiber, aiding thermal management compared with bulk solid-state lasers.

Common challenges include nonlinear optical effects such as stimulated Brillouin scattering and stimulated Raman scattering at high powers, modal instabilities in some designs, and damage thresholds at fiber end faces or coatings. System reliability depends on pump source quality, fiber coatings, and protective components such as isolators and connectors.

Applications span materials processing (cutting, welding, drilling), micromachining and marking, medical surgery and dermatology, sensing, and research. The field includes various dopants, fiber geometries, and cavity designs, enabling tailored performance for specific tasks.