Grant: Alliance Grants

High-power fiber lasers have seen tremendous development in the last decade which is fueled simultaneously by industrial applications. This rapid advance in technology has occurred with rare-earth-doped fiber lasers, specifically ytterbium-doped (Yb) fiber lasers. However, the window of emission wavelengths from these lasers is limited to a small band (1020-1125nm), and other rare-earth-doped fiber lasers are significantly limited in power and efficiency. Most importantly, there are substantial gaps in the wavelength spectrum where no rare-earth fiber laser technology is available. Currently, Raman fiber lasers (RFL) and amplifier (RFA) are the only known wavelength tunable, high-power fiber laser technology that can span the wavelength spectrum and cover these spectrum gaps. The RFL spectral performance is of great importance for most applications, and especially for those that require frequency doubling to the visible spectral range. The same applies for femtosecond lasers where they are spectral gaps between the emission spectra of the various gain media. A new technology developed by INRS researchers and based on Stimulated Raman Scattering enable to both compress sub-picosecond laser systems and to shift the central wavelength to the IR. Our Canadian industrial partner MPBC is interested in developing these novel Raman based laser systems for the CW, quasi-CW, and the ultrafast regime. This project is based on four research efforts capitalizing on complementary academic and industrial expertise. This includes: (1) The development of high average power narrow linewidth CW and quasi-CW RFLs and RFAs. (2) Developing high energy coherent ultrashort fiber laser sources (picosecond to femtosecond pulses) based on electronically driven pulses without mode-locking. (3) Developing high energy ultrafast laser systems based on multidimensional solitary states (MDSS) driven by Stimulated Raman Scattering in hollow waveguides. (4) Scaling MDSS to MHz repetition rate for biomedical imaging with nonlinear optical microscopy. This project will enable to train four Ph.D. students and four postdoctoral fellows, which is highly valuable for Canada's knowledge based economy.