Abstract: Systems, devices, and methods of the present invention provide for the effective generation of high-speed modulated light using difference frequency generation (DFG). Modulated light in the mid-IR region may be generated in an optical resonator with a DFG device and having a Q factor greater than about 50 for a signal light with a wavelength in the range between 1350 and 1550 nm. A DFG device may generate the modulated mid-IR light by collinear passage of the intracavity signal light and a modulated pump light having a wavelength in the range between 1000 and 1100 nm through the DFG device. The modulated pump could be used for pumping both a signal lasing media and a DFG device at the same time.

Abstract: A gain fiber assembly for use in optical fiber amplification systems such as fiber amplifiers and fiber lasers utilizes an active or “bare” fiber that has a single glass cladding with an outer diameter of less is less than 80 ?m and preferably less than 60 ?m or even 40 ?m. A passive double-clad input fiber is stripped of the outer cladding and tapered to match the outer diameter of the bare fiber. A glass-fluid or glass-vacuum interface along the taper provides guidance of the pump into and along the cladding of the bare fiber and a NA>1 for a vacuum or gasses and an NA>0.8 for liquids. This allows for much shorter fiber lengths to reach max signal power and higher pump conversion efficiencies.

Abstract: A gain fiber assembly for use in optical fiber amplification systems such as fiber amplifiers and fiber lasers utilizes an active or “bare” fiber that has a single glass cladding with an outer diameter of less is less than 80 ?m and preferably less than 60 ?m or even 40 ?m. A passive double-clad input fiber is stripped of the outer cladding and tapered to match the outer diameter of the bare fiber. A glass-fluid or glass-vacuum interface along the taper provides guidance of the pump into and along the cladding of the bare fiber and a NA>1 for a vacuum or gasses and an NA>0.8 for liquids. This allows for much shorter fiber lengths to reach max signal power and higher pump conversion efficiencies.

Abstract: A femtosecond laser source includes an injection laser oscillator with an optical fiber doped with a given material, suitable for delivering, via an output optical fiber, a first picosecond pulse, at a first wavelength ?1; a power amplifier with an amplifying optical fiber for producing, from the first pulse, a second pulse at the first wavelength, with an energy that is amplified relative to the first pulse, the amplifying optical fiber being doped with the same material as the optical fiber of the injection oscillator and having a length less than or equal to the distance from the point of soliton compression and greater than the distance from which the amplifying optical fiber operates in non-linear mode; a fiber with a frequency shift suitable for receiving the second pulse and generating, by Raman self-shifting, a fundamental soliton at a second wavelength ?2 that is strictly greater than the first wavelength ?1.