Abstract

Since the release of the FCPA µJewel femtosecond fiber laser in 2004, a range of applications have been investigated. Today, the pulse energy and average power of the lasers in this product family reach 50 µJ and 20 W, respectively. Initially, the user community assumed that ultrafast fiber lasers will have operational and stability characteristics similar to the more familiar solid-state ultrafast lasers. However, our results over the years have clearly demonstrated that the stability and reliability of ultrafast fiber lasers meet the requirements for industrial applications. Individual lasers easily exceed 10,000 operational hours without maintenance and over one million cumulative field operational hours have been collected from industrial applications alone.

© 2011 Optical Society of America