Abstract
In this thesis, we studied experimentally and theoretically spectrally shaped chirped pulse amplification (CPA) of a high-power ytterbium-doped fiber laser amplifier with a central wavelength at 1064 nm. The seed source is an all-normal dispersion (ANDi) passively mode-locked fiber laser. For the amplified stages, we employ the 10 m-core and 30 m-core non-polarization maintaining Yb-doped fiber to be used in the pre-amplifier and main amplified stages respectively. The seed laser generated pulses with a repetition rate of ~15 MHz, spectral bandwidth ~ 9 nm and an output power of 28 W. According to the numerical simulation results of the nonlinear Schrodinger equation (NLSE), both spectral bandwidth and spectral profile of the seed laser would affect the outcome of pulse compression. Especially, the spectral profile of the seed pulse plays a dominant role. Thus, a spectral filter was employed such that the spectrum of the seed laser output was Gaussian-like. The maximum output of the pulse energy can be as high as 2.0 J. The peak power of the best compressed pulse was ~ 60 kW and the pulse duration was as short as 350 fs (FWHM). Approximately 40% of the pulse energy is in the main pulse.