1Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
2Key Laboratory of Optical Information Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, Institute of Modern Optics, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
A 2 kW single-mode fiber laser with two cascade home-made cladding light strippers (CLSs) has been demonstrated by employing bidirectional-pump scheme. 2.009 kW signal power is obtained when pump power is 2.63 kW and the slope efficiency is 76.6%. Raman Stokes light is less than -47 dB at 2.009 kW even with a 10-m delivery fiber with core/inner cladding diameter of 20 μm/400 μm. The beam quality M2≤1.2 and the spectral FWHM bandwidth is 4.34 nm. There is no transverse mode instability and the output power stability of ±0.14% is achieved by special thermal management for a more uniform temperature distribution on the Yb-doped gain fiber.