High power fiber lasers the revitalisation of laser technology

Summary form only given. A comprehensive range of CW and pulsed fibre lasers and amplifiers delivering from 1 to 30 W average power is reported. The novel technological platform exploiting the advantages of silica fibre lasers along with high power laser diode pumping results in developing a new generation of laser sources suitable for multiple applications. The main features of these laser sources are extremely high wall plug efficiency (up to 10-20%), high reliability (typically 100,000 hours or higher), compactness and robustness in operation, and also the flexibility in performance. The application of the laser sources for terrestrial telecommunications and also free space ranging applications satellite communication, marking printing and others areas is discussed. In particular, we will present 10 W single mode CW erbium doped fibre amplifier for operation around 1550 nm, "eye safe" pulse laser system operating at 1-100 kHz repetition rate and delivering 1-100 nsec pulse with peak power up to 100 kW, single frequency (<10 kHz) fibre lasers with up to 10 W CW power, high power ytterbium CW fibre lasers for operation around 1 /spl mu/m in CW or pulse, and also with direct modulation with DC to 1 GHz bandwidth.