Patent ID: 8194310

Claim:
Apparatus for generating a stream of pulses for driving a non-linear optical converter, the apparatus comprising; a gain switched fiber laser oscillator providing a pulse stream output; a continuous wave laser diode cladding pumping the fiber laser oscillator; a first set of fiber amplifiers for amplifying the pulse stream output from the fiber laser oscillator and having an output at which are the amplified signals; a second set of fiber amplifiers for amplifying the pulse stream output from the fiber laser oscillator and having an output at which are the amplified signals; a third set of fiber amplifiers; a CW laser diode cladding pumping each of the fiber amplifiers in the first, second and third sets of fiber amplifiers; and a fiber combiner combining the amplified signals at the output of each of the first and second sets of fiber amplifiers; wherein the combined amplified signals from the fiber combiner are input to the third set of fiber amplifiers to be further amplified; wherein the fiber laser oscillator, all the fiber amplifiers and the fiber combiner are all spliced together without non-fiber elements.