Narrow-pulse-width gain-switched thulium fiber laser

A hybrid-pumped gain-switched Tm3+ fiber laser with an all-fiber configuration is demonstrated to achieve over 10 W 2 mu m pulsed laser beams. This laser system is complementarily pumped by a 790 nm continuous-wave diode laser and a 1 mu m pulsed Yb3+ fiber laser. Based on the triggering effect of a 1 mu m pulse pump and the Rayleigh scattering induced Brillouin scattering effect, the 2 mu m laser pulse can be narrowed to less than 20 ns, which is the narrowest pulse width ever achieved in high-power gain-switched thulium fiber lasers. The maximum pulse energy is 2 mJ and the maximum peak power is over 100 kW. Supercontinuum generation spanning over 200 nm can be observed with an average-power spectral density of > 30 mW nm(-1).