Abstract
In this thesis, we utilize a pulse shaper to control the spectral phase of the pulse seeded to a commercial Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA) system, and seek to maximize the peak power and minimize the duration of the output pulse. In theory, nonlinear effects can be suppressed when the pulse remains highly chirped during the amplification process. However, in our experiment the EDFA is composed of relatively long EDF [40 meters] compare to typical fiber amplifiers [roughly 3-5 meters], nonlinear effects still play important roles as noticeable spectral broadening is observed. In our work, an input pulse with 7.7 mW average power, 8.3 MHz repetition rate and 660 fs transform-limited (TL) pulse width [defined by full-width at half maximum (FWHM)] is seeded to our EDFA system [with 1.5 W pump power]. Amplified pulses with average power of 155 mW [before compression] and peak power of 235 kW [after ideal phase compensation] is generated when a group delay dispersion (GDD) of 3.285 ps2 is applied to the seed pulse via a pulse shaper.