Large-mode-area erbium-ytterbium-doped photonic-crystal fiber amplifier for high-energy femtosecond pulses at 1.55 microm.

We report a high-energy femtosecond fiber amplifier based on an air-cladded single-transverse-mode erbium-ytterbium-codoped photonic-crystal fiber with a 26-microm mode-field-diameter. 700-fs, 47-MHz pulses at 1557 nm were amplified and compressed to near-transform-limited 100-fs, 7.4-nJ pulses with 54-kW peak powers without chirped-pulse amplification. A linearly polarized output with an extinction ratio exceeding 42 dB was obtained by double-pass configuration. As an application, supercontinuum spanning from 1000 to 2500 nm was generated by a successive 2-m high-nonlinear fiber with a 140-mW average power.