Summary of the invention
In view of the present situation of current end pump fiber laser, for breaking through the limited bottleneck of fiber laser power ascension, the invention provides a kind of circulating type high density and inject waveguide laser and laser generation method.The design concept that the present invention uses courageously, innovates, adopts unique waveguiding structure and gain fibre version, by circulating type high density side injection technique, makes high power laser light output realize qualitative leap, has great application potential.
For achieving the above object, the present invention takes following technical scheme:
A kind of circulating type high density is injected waveguide laser, comprises a metal waveguide, a gain fibre and a LD pumping array; Described gain fibre is plate-like bare fiber, is placed in described metal waveguide, and described LD pumping array is positioned at the side of described metal waveguide, and pump light incides in described metal waveguide and passes through described gain fibre.
Further, described metal waveguide is by connecting and composing with fixed axis in the middle of two metal plates; The described gain fibre of certain length is wrapped on described fixed axis, and described gain fibre is except two ends at the whole story, and remainder has all been peelled off the bare fiber of coat; Described LD pumping array Ge road pump light reflects between two metal plates, and in reflection process, passes through described gain fibre.
Described two metal plates adopt copper coin, and the medial surface of plate is coated with reflectance coating.
Side at metal waveguide is provided with side shield, the reserved input port of LD pumping and the outlet of the head and the tail of optical fiber.
Described gain fibre is selected thick fibre core, the length of described gain fibre meets tries one's best long and will avoid pump light after multiple reflections, to turn back on pumping source in waveguide, the winding radius of described gain fibre is theoretical definite according to the macrobending loss of laser, to ensure that the Laser output that obtains high light beam quality is as the criterion.
Described pump light incident angle meets incident light total reflection condition, makes pump light that total reflection constantly occur between upper and lower two metallic plates.
Described LD pumping array adopts high power semiconductor laser diode array.
Described laser also comprises cooling system, and described cooling system is one of water-cooled or air cooling way, with described LD pumping array be connected with metal waveguide.
A kind of laser high power laser generation method, is characterized in that, realizes by following aspect:
1) fiber reel of making one circulating type, described optical fiber only stays two terminations not by gymnosis, and remainder is all peelled off coat;
2) lay a LD pumping array, form multichannel pump light, pump light injects from the not ipsilateral of fiber reel, and pump light is passed through from optical fiber, produces powerful, the sufficiently long laser of transmission mileage in optical fiber.
At the each metal wave guide plate that hides of upper and lower faces of described fiber reel, blocked the gateway of the inlet and the optic fibre end that only stay LD pumping by side shield in side, between two metal wave guide plates, constantly there is reflection and constantly pass through bare fiber in pump light, in the metal wave guide plate one side relative with fiber reel, be coated with high reflecting metal layer.
The beneficial effect that technical solution of the present invention is brought is:
1) the present invention adopts and is made into metal wave godet at fixed axis of two metallic plate intermediate supports, Optical Fiber Winding is formed to a wound fiber in this waveguide dish, and optical fiber peeling is made into bare fiber, allows LD pumping inject with certain angle from the side of waveguide dish.This circulating type profile pump injection technique, pumping coupling efficiency higher (be pump light utilance, theoretical calculation can reach more than 95%), can not be subject to the restriction of end pumping mode power ascension.As long as pump power is enough high, cooling measure is enough good, can realize very high light-light conversion efficiency and electrical-optical conversion efficiency completely in theory.
2) pump light constantly reflects between upper and lower two metallic plates, and constantly wears bare fiber in reflection process, and laser high density is injected in doped fiber; Adopt multichannel pump light to inject from the different lateral location of plate simultaneously, not only increased the power of pump light, and because optical fiber around shape, when pump light injects from fiber reel side, be the equal of to inject from the different length of optical fiber, postponed the transmission distance of laser in optical fiber; At the inner surface plating highly reflective metal of metal waveguide, increase the albedo of pump light.
3) although gain media is also rare earth doped optical fibre, but this waveguide laser and conventional fiber laser have a very large difference conceptive, in the fiber laser with coat, coat plays the effect of restriction pump light transmission, pump light can only inject from one end of optical fiber, export from the other end, and in this waveguide laser, pump light transmits in whole waveguide array resonant cavity, the volume of waveguide is much larger than common waveguide laser, therefore can realize the pumping coupling efficiency more much higher than fiber laser, and pump light is almost completely absorbed.
4) different from ordinary optic fibre laser, powerful diode laser matrix LD pumping, without shaping, collimation and coupling fiber optical system through complicated, can directly be carried out high density pumping from surrounding to the fibre core of gain fibre.
5) we are integrated in this waveguide laser output optical fibre probe above metal cutter, utilize its remarkable beam quality and high power output, realize high-quality laser cutting fast.Than the cutting machine of traditional carbon dioxide laser equipment, this waveguide laser output beam quality is good, and power density is high, is very beneficial for the absorption of metal material, has remarkable cutting power, thereby can reduce processing charges.In addition, this waveguide laser is exported by optical fiber, does not need the light-conducting systems such as complicated speculum, and light path is simple, Stability Analysis of Structures, and outer light path is non-maintaining.Light is derived by optical fiber, makes the design of mechanical system become very simple, is very easy to robot and multidimensional workbench integrated.The circulating type high density of development is injected waveguide laser owing to having the high-output power of several kilowatts, will have great potential to be applied to the civil area such as interference or blinding enemy scouting, communication satellite sensor military field and materials processing (cutting, welding, boring, soldering, quenching), high-end manufacture.
Embodiment
Below in conjunction with drawings and Examples, the present invention is described in detail.
The structure of this laser of the present invention's design is: be mainly made up of LD pumping array 1, metal waveguide 2, gain fibre 3 and cooling system more than 4 parts, as shown in Figure 2.
LD pumping itself belongs to prior art products, and high power, high stability, high light beam quality have the plurality of advantages such as volume is little, lightweight, sound construction, life-span length, in each fields such as industry, communication, military affairs, medical treatment.So-called pumping array is combined to multiple pumpings in laser exactly in some way, realizes high-power Laser output.LD pumping array 1 is mainly made up of parts such as LD, power drives, temperature controls.Consider and will realize high-power Laser output, pumping source adopts high power semiconductor laser diode array.The arrangement of pumping array in laser introduced after complete other structures in the back in detail.
Metal waveguide 2 is the important component parts that form laserresonator, it is by two metal plates 21,22, centre connects and composes (as shown in Figure 3) with fixed axis 23, form a winding disc (being similar to the appearance of cable hank), on plate, be wound around the gain fibre 3 of certain length around fixed axis.In conjunction with actual processing conditions, the material of metal waveguide is chosen as copper, opposite face (hereinafter referred to as inner surface) polishing of two boards, and be coated with nickel or golden to improve reflectivity.
The structural key of metal waveguide 2 is to construct laserresonator.Resonant cavity has three Main Functions in plate-like fiber laser, and the one, the transmission of restriction pump light, pump light, at upper and lower two metal surface multiple reflections, is finally absorbed by fiber core, thereby the inner film of plating to the high reflection of pump light wave band that need of planar waveguide; The 2nd, need to be between two metal plate waveguides laying optical fiber, make again optical fiber long as much as possible in the confined space as far as possible, therefore adopt wound form; The 3rd, the optical fiber close contact of metal waveguide and winding, the heat that optical fiber produces must have by planar waveguide and sheds, thereby requires the good heat conductivity of metal waveguide, when high power running, should suitably freeze at disk outer surface.
The requirement of comprehensive above two aspects, dull and stereotyped material is chosen as copper, and inner surface polishing is gold-plated to improve reflecting effect.In addition, because the angle of bend of optical fiber can not be too large, thereby between two flat metals, should support a fixed axis with certain radius, on the one hand two metal plate support be got up, vacate certain winding space, can be used as on the other hand the winding center of optical fiber.
The gain fibre 3 adopting in the present invention, it is a kind of bare fiber of removing coat, it is entwined fiber reel according to certain radius (just referring to the axle in the middle of metal waveguide) and (notes, at the position, two terminations of gain fibre 3, the coat of optical fiber can not divest, otherwise can cause laser to leak out in a large number).Adopt the reason of bare fiber to be, what the present invention adopted is the mode from optical fiber side-pumping, if optical fiber with coat, pump light will be blocked, and cannot be injected into inside of optical fibre.
The method that optical fiber is removed coat is, because optical fiber coating layer material is poly-propionic acid resin, so can adopt and can make it that solution that chemistry dissolves occurs to soak, make coat that breaking to a certain degree occur, then just can peel off from fibre core.This method can be removed the coat of gain fibre easily, and does not damage the silica fiber fibre core of gain fibre.
In the selection of gain fibre 3, should follow following rule: first, in the selection of fiber core size, for bearing high-power laser operation, under the condition possessing at drawing process, should select as far as possible large-sized fibre core; Secondly,, for ensureing the beam quality of Output of laser, the mode that the mode of employing curved fiber increases high-rder mode loss in fiber core ensures single-mode output, is exactly that Optical Fiber Winding is discoid in this embodiment; Again, in the selection of fiber lengths, should consider from two aspects: the one, avoid pump light after multiple reflections, to return and be irradiated on pumping source waveguide as far as possible, otherwise gently can cause the reduction in pumping source life-span, when serious, can directly damage pumping source; The 2nd, increase the absorption efficiency of fiber core to pump light as far as possible, increase the doping content of fibre core, should consider above two kinds of situations, determine optimum fiber length, thereby the pump light that pumping source sends is completely absorbed in the process of advancing.The medium of gain fibre is also rare earth, is a kind of rare earth doped optical fiber.
Cooling system 4 is main, and to adopt recirculated water cooling or air cooling way be that LD pumping array 1 and metal waveguide 2 freeze, and it can take away the heat that LD pumping array and metal waveguide produce efficiently, in time.Cooling system 4 itself can adopt routine techniques means in prior art to realize.Specifically, can water-cooling groove 41 be set in the bottom of metal waveguide 2, pass into recirculated water (as shown in Figure 3).
Above-mentioned these several parts, gain fibre 3 is wrapped on metal waveguide 2 centered by fixed axis, is wound around layer by layer from the inside to surface, forms optical fibre ring waveguide dish; LD pumping array 1 injects from the side of fibre-optic waveguide dish with equal angles, uniform mode, the number of pumping can be 4-10 not etc., as shown in Figure 4, depending on the size of waveguide dish and the power height adjustment voluntarily needing.In the side of fibre-optic waveguide dish, remove the input port of pumping and the gateway, termination of optical fiber reserved outside, all the other positions can adopt side shield 5 to block, and to protect exposed optical fiber, inject waveguide laser thereby form circulating type high density.
So theoretically, as long as pumping is abundant, power is enough high, and cooling measure is enough good, and optical fiber long enough just can be realized very high light-light conversion efficiency and electro-optical efficiency.By surrounded according to certain radius the bare fiber of removing coat and covering, be placed between two flat metal waveguides, should determine according to the macrobending loss of fiber laser is theoretical around the size of radius, to ensure that the Laser output that obtains high light beam quality is as the criterion.Be distributed in annular fibre-optic waveguide dish high power LD pumping array 1 around, the pump light of output is injected into optical fibre ring waveguide with certain angle high density from the gap of two slab guides, as shown in Figure 5, the selection of angle should meet incident laser total reflection condition, make pump light that total reflection constantly occur between upper and lower two metallic plates, light is limited in transmission in waveguide, and in crossing, constantly passes through refracting process doped fiber fibre core, cause a large amount of upper energy level populations to produce stimulated radiation and constantly transit to low-lying level, thereby in fibre core, produce high-power Laser output.Consider and do not make pump light appear and cause waste from the gap of planar waveguide side, (the reserved input port of several LD pumping arrays and the outlet of the head and the tail of optical fiber) should be sealed in annulus side, and should plate highly reflecting films (gold-plated or nickel) towards the metallic plate of optical fiber one side.
For two terminations of gain fibre, press close to place a high reflectance optical mirror slip (reflectivity 99.9%) an end, the end face of this termination adopts plane interface form; Another termination of optical fiber is as laser output, and this end face adopts inclined-plane interface shape, with output high-power, high efficiency optical-fiber laser.
For the making of this laser, processed respectively before this bare fiber, metal waveguide; When assembling, under first just the side board of metal waveguide is dismantled, by the gain bare fiber (50m) of making carefully according to certain winding radius, coiling enters in the groove of metal waveguide, cross section as shown in Figure 3, attention: two outputs of gain fibre will stretch out the each 10cm of metal waveguide left and right, and can not peel off coat, otherwise the laser that vibration produces will all leak out; After fixing gain fibre, then the side board of the metal waveguide of pulling down is installed and is screwed and expose pumping entrance and optic fibre exit; Then several (as 10) are equally spaced positioned over to the circumference (interval 360) of metal waveguide with the LD pumping (continuous power output 50W) of equal-specification, connect cooling system to LD pumping and waveguide dish simultaneously, this LD pumping array is carried out cooling, to ensure that semiconductor laser is operated in suitable temperature; At two output ports of gain fibre, near a fiber-optic output face place, to press close to place a high reflectance optical mirror slip (reflectivity 99.9%), another port is the laser output of laser; Finally connect power supply, assembly and adjustment.
By this laser, essence of the present invention has also proposed a kind of laser generation method of high power laser, realize by following aspect: the fiber reel of 1) making a circulating type, described optical fiber only stays two terminations not by gymnosis, and remainder is all peelled off coat, 2) laying one LD pumping array, form multichannel pump light, inject from the not ipsilateral of fiber reel, pump light is passed through from optical fiber, in optical fiber, produce powerful, the sufficiently long laser of transmission mileage.
Further, at the each metal wave guide plate that hides of upper and lower faces of fiber reel, blocked the gateway of the inlet and the optic fibre end that only stay LD pumping by side shield in side, constantly there is reflection and constantly pass through bare fiber in LD pump light between two metal wave guide plates.
Again further, in the metal wave guide plate one side relative with fiber reel, be coated with high reflecting metal layer, for nickel or gold can, make LD pump light increase reflection efficiency.
Again further, described LD pumping array is laid in the side of fiber reel with same angle, uniform mode, and implant angle to produce total reflection as best between two metallic plates.
For anti-work temperature rise, on metal wave guide plate He on LD pumping array, cooling device is set.