A cladding-pumped, tunable holmium doped fiber laser

We present a tunable, high power cladding-pumped holmium doped fiber laser. The laser generated >15 W CW average power across a wavelength range of 2.043 - 2.171 μm, with a maximum output power of 29.7 W at 2.120 μm. The laser also produced 18.2 W when operating at 2.171 µm. To the best of our knowledge this is the highest power operation of a holmium doped laser at a wavelength >2.15 µm. We discuss the significance of background losses and fiber design for achieving efficient operation in holmium doped fibers.