Femtosecond high power Tm : Ho fiber laser at 2050 nm ; Laser à fibres Tm : Ho de haute puissance à femtoseconde à 2050 nm

The chirped pulse amplification (CPA) technique was developed to power scale the pulsesfrom mode-locked oscillators as the pulse energy was not sufficient to target applicationssuch as strong field physics and particle acceleration. Since its development in 1985 ithas been applied in a wide variety of commercially available laser systems and ultra-highpower laser facilities. The technique allows to circumvent the accumulation of non-linearphase which hampers pulse compression and allows to maintain the fluence of the pulsesbelow the laser induced damage thresholds (LIDT) of components. In this thesis wedevelop CPA laser systems operating at 2.05μm wavelengths with high average powerand high energy starting from the development of the seed laser up to the design andimplementation of the pulse stretcher, amplifiers and pulse compressor.In the first section of the thesis we introduce the physics background and phenomenarequired for understanding the chirped pulse amplification technique and the developmentof the seed laser. This includes dispersion, self-phase modulation and Raman scattering.In the second section of the thesis we present the development of an all-fiber polarizationmaintaining laser tunable over 170nm, from 1880nm up to 2050nm via Ramansoliton self-frequency shift (SSFS). The system is based on exclusively commercially availablestandard fibers. We have characterised the laser in terms of power, spectrum andpulse duration and we have included a post-compression stage that relies on non-lineareffects to reach the sub-100 fs duration across the whole tunability range. Simulations ofthe soliton post-compression shows the versatility of the laser which allows to customisethe pulse duration over a spectral range or for a particular wavelength. We believe thatthe laser is a versatile and robust alternative to Tm and Tm:Ho oscillators.In the third section we have tested the tunable laser in a wide variety of stretchingand compression architectures suitable for CPA. We have investigated fibers and ...