He-Kr Gas-Discharge Laser Based on Hollow-Core Fiber

Recently, two completely different types of lasers—a fiber laser and a gas-discharge laser—were combined into a single device by demonstrating 2.03 µm laser generation in He-Xe plasma that was produced by a microwave discharge directly inside a hollow-core fiber. This new type of laser—a gas-discharge fiber laser—provides excellent opportunities to greatly enrich the wavelength range of the operation of fiber lasers. In this work, we investigate a He-Kr gas mixture as an active medium of this new type of laser. As a result, a He-Kr gas-discharge fiber laser is demonstrated for the first time. The laser was pumped by a microwave discharge in a He:Kr (40:1) mixture that was filled into a revolver fiber with the hollow-core diameter of 130 µm. The total gas pressure was about 100 torr. With broadband mirrors of the laser resonator, generation was observed simultaneously at wavelengths of 2190 and 2523 nm. The output power of the He-Kr gas-discharge fiber laser was about 1 mW.