We report here the first hundred-watt continuous wave fiber gas laser in H2-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) by stimulated Raman scattering. The pump source is a homemade narrow-linewidth fiber oscillator with a 3 dB linewidth of 0.15 nm at the maximum output power of 380 W. To efficiently and stably couple several-hundred-watt pump power into the hollow core and seal the gas, a hollow-core fiber end-cap is fabricated and used at the input end. A maximum power of 110 W at 1153 nm is obtained in a 5 m long hollow-core PCF filled with 36 bar H2, and the conversion efficiency of the first Stokes power is around 48.9%. This work paves the way for high-power fiber gas Raman lasers.

The average power of diode-pumped fiber lasers has been developed deeply into the kW regime in the past years. However, stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) is still a major factor limiting the further power scaling. Here, we have demonstrated the mitigation of SRS in kilowatt-level diode-pumped fiber amplifiers using a chirped and tilted fiber Bragg grating (CTFBG) for the first time. The CTFBG is designed and inscribed in large-mode-area (LMA) fibers, matching with the operating wavelength of the fiber amplifier. With the CTFBG inserted between the seed laser and the amplifier stage, an SRS suppression ratio of ${\sim}10~\text{dB}$ is achieved in spectrum at the maximum output laser power of 2.35 kW, and there is no reduction in laser slope efficiency and degradation in beam quality. This work proves the feasibility and practicability of CTFBGs for SRS suppression in high-power fiber lasers, which is very useful for the further power scaling.

We report here a high-power, wavelength tunable and narrow linewidth $1.5~\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{m}$ all-fiber laser amplifier based on a tunable diode laser and Er-Yb co-doped fibers. The laser wavelength can be precisely tuned from 1535 nm to 1580 nm, which covers many absorption lines of mid-infrared laser gases, such as $\text{C}_{2}\text{H}_{2}$, HCN, CO, and HI. The maximum laser power is ${>}$11 W, and the linewidth is about 200–300 MHz, which is close to the absorption linewidth of the above-mentioned gases. This work provides a suitable pump source for high-power wavelength tunable mid-infrared fiber gas lasers based on low-loss hollow-core fibers.

It has been known for almost a decade and a half that in trypanosomes all mRNAs are trans-spliced by addition to the 5′ end of the spliced leader (SL) sequence. During the same time period the conviction developed that classical cis-splicing introns are not present in the trypanosome genome and that the trypanosome gene arrangement is highly compact with small intergenic regions separating one gene from the next. We have now discovered that these tenets are no longer true. Poly(A) polymerase (PAP) genes in Trypanosoma brucei and Trypanosoma cruzi are split by intervening sequences of 653 and 302 nt, respectively. The intervening sequences occur at identical positions in both organisms and obey the GT/AG rule of cis-splicing introns. PAP mRNAs are trans-spliced at the very 5′ end as well as internally at the 3′ splice site of the intervening sequence. Interestingly, 11 nucleotide positions past the actual 5′ splice site are conserved between the T. brucei and T. cruzi introns. Point mutations in these conserved positions, as well as in the AG dinucleotide of the 3′ splice site, abolish intron removal in vivo. Our results, together with the recent discovery of cis-splicing introns in Euglena gracilis, suggest that both trans- and cis-splicing are ancient acquisitions of the eukaryotic cell.