A LD pumped gain switched Yb3+ doped double-cladding fiber laser

A gain-switched Ytterbium-doped double-cladding fiber laser pumped by a laser diode was presented. A diode laser with wavelength of 966nm and output power of 25W was adopted as the pump source. 11-meter long Yb-doped double-cladding fiber was used as gain medium. The output power and the pulse waveform of the laser were measured under different pulse width and different repetition frequency. The output power of the gain-switched fiber laser was 2.67W when the repetition frequency was 50Hz and the pulse width was 10ms, the corresponding conversion efficiency from light to light was 16.9%.