Elahı, P.Kalaycıoğlu, H.Akçaalan, Ö.Şenel, Ç.Ilday, F. Ö.2018-04-122018-04-1220170146-9592http://hdl.handle.net/11693/37023We report on the development of, to the best of our knowledge, the first ultrafast burst-mode laser system operating at a central wavelength of approximately 2 μm, where water absorption and, consequently, the absorption of most biological tissue is very high. The laser comprises a harmonically mode-locked 1-GHz oscillator, which, in turn, seeds a fiber amplifier chain. The amplifier produces 500 ns long bursts containing 500 pulses with 1 GHz intra-burst and 50 kHz inter-burst repetition rates, respectively, at an average power of 1 W, corresponding to 40 nJ pulse and 20 μJ burst energies, respectively. The entire system is built in an all-fiber architecture and implements dispersion management such that output pulses are delivered directly from a single-mode fiber with a duration of 340 fs without requiring any external compression. This gigahertz-repetition-rate system is intended for ablation-cooled laser material removal in the 2 μm wavelength region, which is interesting for laser surgery due to the exceptionally high tissue absorption at this wavelength.EnglishElectromagnetic pulseFiber amplifiersFiber lasersFibersLaser surgerySingle mode fibersTissueWater absorptionBiological tissuesBurst repetition rateCentral wavelengthDispersion managementFiber amplifier chainsLaser material removalTissue absorptionWavelength regionsPulse repetition rateArticle10.1364/OL.42.003808