Highly dynamic and versatile pulsed fiber amplifier seeded by a superluminescence diode

We propose and investigate a high power superluminescence diode (SLD) as a pulsed seed source for a highly dynamic and versatile pulse fiber amplifier system. The SLD provides, contrary to conventional Fabry-P,rot laser diodes, a smooth and broad output spectrum which is independent of the input pulse parameters. The output pulses from the SLD are as short as 10 ns with up to 150 mW peak power. Moreover, the pulses can be directly shaped by modulating the injection current of the SLD. Pulse shaping in an amplifier configuration is demonstrated without the observation of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) due to the provided spectral bandwidth of 10 nm FWHM. Further spectral shaping was realized with a band pass filter in the amplifier chain.