We demonstrate an all-PM Er-doped soliton mode-locked fiber oscillator based on the figure-9 configuration with a compact adjustable reflection-type non-reciprocal phase shifter. An analytical model based on the Jones matrix is established to simulate the wavelength tuning phenomenon. Experimentally, it is observed that the increase in pump power results in a significant redshift in the spectrum of output pulses. When the angle of the half-wave plate is rotated in one direction, the output spectrum is redshifted and then blueshifted successively. Good qualitative agreement is presented between the simulations and the experimental results. It is shown that the increase in pump power changes the nonlinear phase shift, which causes the redshift of the transmittance curves at the laser output port. In contrast, the rotation of wave plates not only changes the nonlinear phase shift difference, but also causes variations in linear phase bias and modulation depth. The changes in these parameters lead to the redshift and blueshift of the transmission curves, which enables wavelength tuning.

Single-frequency fiber lasers (SFFLs) are essential for applications such as gravitational wave detection, high-precision spectroscopy, and inertial confinement fusion, requiring narrow linewidth, low noise, and high output power. Here, we present a comparative study of 1 μm waveband distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) SFFLs with varying cavity parameters. Numerically, we investigate the effects of key cavity parameters on laser performance by plotting contour maps of output power versus grating reflectivity and lasing wavelength. We also simulate intensity noise transfer functions from pump fluctuations. Increasing pump power shifts the relaxation oscillation peak to higher frequency and reduces its amplitude, which originates from the higher intracavity photon density that speeds up the damping of perturbations. Experimentally, we construct two lasers using 6.5 mm and 10.5 mm YDFs spliced between FBG pairs. These lasers employ low-reflectivity FBGs centered at 1053 nm and 1064 nm, with reflectivities of 74% and 55%, respectively. The corresponding maximum output powers are 29.7 mW and 197 mW. The 1053 nm SFFL exhibits a relative intensity noise (RIN) of −102 dBc/Hz at 2.07 MHz, a linewidth of 12.52 kHz, and a mode-hop-free tuning range of 0.64 nm. Although increasing the pump power suppresses the relaxation oscillation peak, it broadens the linewidth due to laser phase noise degradation caused by pump noise-induced temperature fluctuations in the gain fiber. For SFFLs, the output powers should be selected according to the specific application, as a higher output power inherently leads to a broader linewidth. These insights are essential for optimizing such lasers and underscore their strong potential for future applications.

Time fiducial laser is an important timing marker for different diagnostic instruments in high energy density physics experiments. The probe laser in velocity interferometer system for any reflector (VISAR) is also vital for precise shock wave diagnosis in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research. Here, time fiducial laser and VISAR probe laser are generated from one source in SG-III laser facility. After generated from a 1064 nm DFB laser, the laser is modulated by an amplitude modulator driven by a 10 GS/s arbitrary waveform generator. Using time division multiplexing technology, the ten-pulse time fiducial laser and the 20 ns pulse width VISAR probe laser are split by a 12 multiplexer and then the time fiducial and VISAR pulses will be selected individually by acoustic-optic modulators. Using this technology, the cost for the system can be reduced. The technologies adopted in the system also include pulse polarization stabilization, high stable Nd: YAG amplification, high precision thermally controlled frequency conversion, fiber coupling, and energy transmission. The fiber laser system is connected to the Nd: YAG rod amplifier stage with polarizing (PZ) fibers to maintain the polarization state. The output laser of Nd: YAG amplification stage is coupled with different kinds of energy transfer fibers to propagate enough energy and maintain the pulse shape for the time fiducial and VISAR probe laser. The input and output fibers are all coupled to the rod amplifiers with high precision and being easy to plug and play for users. Since the time fiducial and imaging VISAR laser system is far from the front end room and located in the target area, the system also uses an arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) to generate the shaped ten-pulse time fiducial laser and 20 ns VISAR laser. This AWG and the other three AWGs used for the main laser pulse of SG-III laser facility will be all synchronized by 10 GHz clock inputs, realizing the smaller than 7 ps (RMS) jitter between the main laser pulse, time fiducial laser and VISAR pulse. After amplification and frequency conversion, the time fiducial laser finally generates 12 beam 2 and 4-beam 3 laserbeams, providing important reference marks for different detectors in the ICF experiments and making it convenient for the analysis of multiple diagnostic data. The VISAR laser pulse is also amplified by the Nd: YAG amplifiers and frequency-converted to 532 nm green light by a thermally controlled LBO crystal, with output energy larger than 20 mJ. Finally, the 532 nm VISAR probe laser beam is coupled with a 1-mm core diameter fused silica optical fiber, and then propagates 30 meters to the imaging VISAR system. The VISAR probe laser has been used in many high energy density physics experiments. The shock wave loading and slowdown processes are measured. Function for measuring velocity history of shock wave front movement in different kinds of materials can be also added to the SG-III laser facility.

Laser driven fusion requires a high-degree uniformity in laser energy deposition in order to achieve the high-density compression required for sustaining a thermonuclear burn. Nowadays, uniform irradiation of capsule is still a key issue in direct drive inertial confinement fusion. The direct drive approach is to drive the target with laser light, by irradiating it with a large number of overlapping laser beams. In the direct drive scheme, the laser deposition pattern on the target can be decomposed into a series of Legendre spherical harmonic modes. The high mode (shorter wavelength) nonuniformity can lead to Rayleigh-Taylor instability, which may result in the failure of target compression. This nonuniformity can be suppressed by thermal conduction and beam conditioning technologies, such as continuous phase plate, smoothing by spectral dispersion and polarization smoothing. The low mode (longer wavelength) nonuniformity is related to the number, orientation and power balance of laser beams, which is hard to suppress by thermal conduction and beam conditioning technologies. Generally, the nonuniformity of laser irradiation on a directly driven target should be less than 1% (root mean square, RMS), to meet the requirement for symmetric compression. Several methods have been proposed to optimize the irradiation configuration in direct drive laser fusion, such as truncated icosahedron with beams at the 20 faces and 12 vertices of an icosaherdron, dodecahedron-based irradiation configurations, self-organizing electrodynamic method, etc. However, limited by the different parameters of incident beams, the irradiation uniformity is often not satisfactory. Therefore, it is necessary to find new way to improve the irradiation uniformity and make it more robust. According to the analytical result, the irradiation nonuniformity can be decomposed into the single beam factor and the geometric factor. Simulation results show that the single beam factor is mainly determined by the parameters of the incident beams, including beam pattern, beam width and beam wavelength. By analyzing and simulating the single beam factor with different incident beam parameters, and comparing the single beam factor with the geometric factor, a matching relationship between them is found by using the optimized parameters. Based on the simulation results, a method to optimize the incident beam parameters is proposed, which is applied to the 32-beam and 48-beam irradiation configurations. The results show that there is a set of optimal incident beam parameters which can attain the highest irradiation uniformity for a given configuration. The feasibility to achieve more uniform irradiation by optimizing the incident beam parameters is proved. When the single beam factor is optimized in a directly driven inertial confinement fusion system, the restrictions on the beam pointing error and power imbalance between incident beams can be relaxed. The results provide an effective method of designing and optimizing the uniform irradiation system of direct drive laser facility.

Phase-modulated (PM) spectral failsafe systems are necessary to promptly terminate amplification processes following accidental seeding of a high-power laser chain with a non-PM pulse to prevent optical damage. In this work, we present a reliable spectral failsafe system that can indicate the presence or absence of sufficient PM light. This requirement is met by combining dual temperature-sensitive fiber Bragg gratings detection with high-speed RF amplitude comparisons. The failsafe trigger signal is generated when the spectral power at the peak sideband exceeds that at the center. The spectral failsafe system has the ability to distinguish between adequate and inadequate PM pulses, and it exhibits significant robustness in pulse width, TEC temperature drift, and DFB wavelength drift in experiments, making it valuable for safe high-power laser operations and providing a useful reference for other detection system designs.