Patent 7817681 was granted and assigned to Corning Incorporated on October, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An optical fiber for performing pulse stretching, and fiber laser systems and methods using the pulse-stretching fiber are disclosed. The pulse-stretching (PS) fiber has low fourth-order dispersion (dispersion curvature) and a third order dispersion (dispersion slope) with a small negative, nearly zero or small positive value. Two different types of fiber laser systems that use the PS fiber in a manner that achieves optimum performance are described. The PS fiber enables an all-fiber (up to the final pulse compressor) ultra-short pulsed laser systems reaching pulse energies exceeding 100 μJ, average powers exceeding 100 W, and output pulse widths of less than 100 fs.