Optically Managing Thermal Energy in High-power Yb-doped Fiber Lasers and Amplifiers: A Brief Review

Fiber lasers have made remarkable progress over the past three decades, and they now serve far-reaching applications and have even become indispensable in many technology sectors. As there is an insatiable appetite for improved performance, whether relating to enhanced spatio-temporal stability, spectral and noise characteristics, or ever-higher power and brightness, thermal management in these systems becomes increasingly critical. Active convective cooling, such as through flowing water, while highly effective, has its own set of drawbacks and limitations. To overcome them, other synergistic approaches are being adopted that mitigate the sources of heating at their roots, including the quantum defect, concentration quenching, and impurity absorption. Here, these optical methods for thermal management are briefly reviewed and discussed. Their main philosophy is to carefully select both the lasing and pumping wavelengths to moderate, and sometimes reverse, the amount of heat that is generated inside the laser gain medium. First, the sources of heating in fiber lasers are discussed and placed in the context of modern fiber fabrication methods. Next, common methods to measure the temperature of active fibers during laser operation are outlined. Approaches to reduce the quantum defect, including tandem-pumped and short-wavelength lasers, are then reviewed. Finally, newer approaches that annihilate phonons and actually cool the fiber laser below ambient, including radiation-balanced and excitation-balanced fiber lasers, are examined. These solutions, and others yet undetermined, especially the latter, may prove to be a driving force behind a next generation of ultra-high-power and/or ultra-stable laser systems.