Rugged and miniaturizable all-fiber system applied to mid-IR generation via ZGP OPO pumping

We report on an all-fiber Master Oscillator Power Amplifier (MOPA) laser at a signal wavelength of 2048 nm, designed for pumping an Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO). This setup offers the benefit of miniaturization while being rugged and thereby suite the demands for mobile counter measures. By utilizing the MOPA structure to design suitable OPO pump pulses the overall mid-IR conversion efficiency is enhanced enabling the scaling of the mid-IR average power. Thus, 50 W average power at a wavelength of 2048 nm is generated and applied to pump a ZGP OPO. For a ZGP OPO pump power of 20 W, mid-IR output power of 11.1 W is achieved. At this maximum output power, a beam quality M2 of 2.2 is measured for signal and idler. To our knowledge this is the highest mid-IR brightness achieved by a fiber laser pumped ZGP OPO.