A novel and compact hybrid resonant amplifier has been demonstrated for further scaling energy/power level from 1.55 μm fiber lasers by using Er3+/Yb3+ co-doped phosphate glass. The seed laser is a pulse shaping fiber laser at an eye safe wavelength of 1.55 μm. The wavelength was temperature controllable and was stabilized at one of amplifier's resonance wavelengths. Pulse shaping technology provides a vital solution in generating different input wave formats, for both CW and pulsed outputs. For Pulsed amplification, the pulse duration can be varied from microsecond to nanosecond and repetition rate from a few Hz to 250 kHz. Gain as high as 20 dB was obtained for nanosecond pulses at 10 Hz repetition rate, comparing with a single pass gain of only 0.64 dB. High OSNR, high extinction ratio and low background noise were also achieved at this low repetition rate by our new amplification method. In our CW input experiment, an optical conversion efficiency of up to 20% was obtained. This new optical amplifier is very compact. The size of the amplifier is less than 5 mm. It has a great potential for broad applications.
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