FEMTOSECOND PULSE AMPLIFICATION IN CLADDING-PUMPED FIBERS

Femtosecond pulse amplification in a-cladding-pumped fiber amplifier i s demonstrated for the first time to our knowledge. Using a cladding-p umped erbium-doped fiber power amplifier and a passively mode-locked f iber seed oscillator in conjunction with an all-fiber chirped-pulse am plification system, we obtain 380-fs near-bandwidth-limited pulses wit h an average power of 260 mW. The pulse repetition rate is varied betw een 5 and 50 MHz, and pulse energies as high as 20 nJ are generated. ( C) 1995 Optical Society of America