In this paper, a preliminary demonstration of all-fiber coherent beam combining (CBC) with active polarization-and- phase control is proposed. The CBC system was composed of two laser channels combined with a fiber coupler. One channel utilized non-polarization-maintained (non-PM) fiber, and the state of polarization of laser was controlled by using a dynamic polarization controller (DPC). The other channel adopted polarization-maintained (PM) fiber, and the phase of laser was controlled by using a phase modulator. In the central controller, hill-climbing algorithm and stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm were applied for phase-locking and polarization-locking respectively. With this system, 82.3% of combining efficiency was demonstrated, the extinction ratio of the combined laser was 97.3% and the phase-locking efficiency reached 96.05%.
This paper proposes and verified a modified cavity configuration in oscillating-amplifying integrated fiber laser for stimulated Raman scattering suppression. A short segment of YDF and a long piece of GDF is used in the oscillating section, which can simultaneously suppress the onset of Raman component and avoid the self-pulsing operation caused by the extremely low gain in cavity. Experimental result shows a 31dB Raman suppression ratio at 1080nm when output power reaches 5kW without any other Raman suppression element.
This paper comprehensively considers the suppression effect of fiber parameter control on Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS), and studies the influence of different phase modulation modes, different linewidths, different fiber Yb ion densities, and different fiber lengths on the SBS threshold of the whole system, The best system setting scheme for improving SBS threshold is also given.
In this work, a high-power polarization-maintained fiber laser with ultra-narrow linewidth and near diffraction limited beam quality is demonstrated. The stimulated Brillouin scattering is mitigated by optimizing phase modulation scheme, the mode instability is suppressed by coiling the active fiber, and the output power reaches to 3kW at the full width at half-maximum linewidth of 10.6GHz. At maximum output power, the stimulated Raman scattering suppression ratio reaches to 75dB, the polarization extinction ratio is 96%, the beam quality M2 is 1.156, and the further scaling of output power is limited by stimulated Brillouin scattering effect. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest power for polarization-maintained fiber laser with about 10GHz linewidth ever reported so far.
The coherent beam combination of kW fiber lasers with a filling aperture has been in research. An experiment is set up to achieve the coherent beam combination. The coherent beam combination of two fiber lasers with a filling aperture is realized, and the phase bandwidth of the beam combination is measured and analyzed. The laser spots before and after the combination are detected respectively. The phase noise of high power laser is measured and the factors affecting the phase noise are analyzed.
A ytterbium-doped large-mode-area step-index fiber perform was fabricated by chelate precursor doping technique. For
the purpose of raising the threshold of nonlinear effects and transverse mode instability simultaneously, a long tapered
fiber was drew by changing the perform drawing speed. The core/cladding diameter of this tapered fiber was varied from
10/155 to 26/400 μm in 18m-long with the tapering ratio of 2.6. Using this fiber as a gain medium for a fiber laser in
amplifier, the beam quality factor M2 was ~1.2 when the output power obtained over 1.2kW with slope efficiency of
74.5%. The laser output spectrum was centered at 1063.8nm with narrow 3dB bandwidth of 0.26nm. The stimulated
Raman scattering suppression ratio was about ~34.7dB.
The stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) effect in fiber amplifiers using white noise signal (WNS) phase modulated seed is simulated. The influences of cut-off frequencies of WNS and the output fiber structure on SBS threshold are discussed. Basing on simulation results, optimized phase modulation signal and output fiber structure are achieved to suppress SBS. A fiber laser is established according to the simulation results.
In this paper, we report a high-robustness good-beam-quality 3×1 signal combiner that performs very well under high power. We use three 3.5kW fiber lasers to inject into the three ports of the combiner to achieve a high power output of 10.4kW, and the power transmission efficiency is 98.2%.The output beam quality M24σ and β factor are tested when the power reached the highest, which are (5.465,5.2) and 2.69 respectively. The temperature rising rate of housing is 0.9 °C/kW, is effectively controlled by water cooling package of the combiner. This 3×1 signal combiner has been used in 10-kW fiber laser product and it works well in harsh environment, demonstrating high robustness against unconventional conditions.
We proposed a simple O-shaped cylinder all-fiber-integrated laser without inter-cladding-power-strippers (CPS) based on a quasi-bidirectional pumping scheme. The fiber grooves were inscribed on the outside of an O-shaped aluminium cylinder with both straight and curved tracks. The curved track with a diameter of 10 cm could suppress the high order modes and keep a stable beam quality with the increases of output power, while the straight parts improve the robustness for fusion points and unpackaged optical components. The simplified configuration of no CPS between the oscillator and the amplifier could also improve the total efficiency. The output power, the optical-to-optical efficiency, the beam quality, and the Raman suppression are systematically investigated. It is verified that this design introduces a practical way to simultaneously improve the transverse mode instability (TMI) and SRS thresholds in a high-power fiber laser system with a simple configuration and high efficiency.
To ensure sufficient absorption of tandem-pumping energy, a large-scale aluminophosphosilicate fiber with 55 μm core and 400 μm inner-clad in diameter, i.e., a 55/400 Yb-APS fiber, was experimentally fabricated by using modified chemical vapor deposition system combining with chelate precursor doping technique. Based on an all-fiberized master oscillator power-amplifier laser setup tandem-pumped by 1018 nm fibber laser, a 150 W 1080 nm seed was amplified to 11.18 kW successfully, along with an optical-to-optical efficiency of 79.7%.
In this paper, we present systematically theoretical analysis of the high order mode (HOM) oscillation in large mode area (LMA) fiber oscillator. A detailed numerical laser oscillator model based on LMA fiber has been built. Model analysis shows that the HOM begins oscillating in fiber laser oscillator when the fiber core diameter reaches 25μm. This HOM oscillation could seriously degrade the beam quality of laser output. In order to suppress the HOM oscillation in LMA fiber laser, we put forward two fiber device models which are partially inscribed fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) and partially doped gain fiber. Simulation proves the inhibition ability against HOM oscillation of these two devices. Our work provides a complete and concise analysis on the mode characteristics in high power fiber laser oscillator.
In this paper, the model to simulate the impact of bend induced mode distortion on the beam quality and mode instability (MI) threshold of fiber amplifier is established, and the results show that the bend induced mode distortion will degrade the beam quality of fiber laser and decrease the MI threshold. The bend induced mode distortion will change the gain of active fiber, then destroy the beam quality of fiber amplifier, and decrease the MI threshold, but the bend loss will suppress high order mode. Therefore, with the decreasing of fiber bend radius, the MI threshold will decrease firstly, and then increase.
In this paper, we report the experimental study on stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) induced mode instabilities (MI) in large mode area step-index fiber in a counter-pumped all-fiberlized amplifier. When the output power is scaled to 1560W, the ratio of SRS is 2% and the beam quality factor M2 is about 1.4. With the further scaling of output power, the SRS power begins to increase nonlinearly, and then the beam quality degrades obviously when the ratio of SRS exceeds 3%, and the M2 is about 2.1 at 1910W, that is the SRS induced MI. The phenomenon is accompanied by the temperature increasing of output passive fiber, which is caused by heat deposition of quantum defect between signal light and Raman light. The temporal dynamics of SRS induced MI is studied in detail for the first time, which are characterized by using both camera measurement and photodiode traces. The experiment results express that both the output power and output beam profile remain stable before the MI occurs, and fluctuate obviously after the onset of SRS induced MI. The temporal frequency investigation indicates that the SRS induced MI is a dynamic process with slow speed fluctuation at second level, and the Fourier spectrum of time trace is within 10Hz, and the SRS induced mode degradation is different from the Yb-gain induced MI effect.
In this paper, we demonstrated an all fiber laser passively Q-switched by black phosphorus saturable absorber with cylindrical vector beam output. A piece of few-mode fiber Bragg grating was used as the mode-selective output coupler. The repetition rate of the pulse trains increased from 16kHz to 24.9kHz when the pump power tuned from 364mW to 460mW. The maximum pulse energy was 305.2nJ with the shortest pulse duration of 7.5μs under the pump power of 460mW.Both radial polarized and azimuthal polarized pulse output could be achieved by adjusting the polarization controllers. The purity of the cylindrical vector beam output was estimated to be over 95%.
Thermal effects are critical limit relevant to the power scaling of single crystalline fiber laser. In this paper, thermal effects in thin-rod single crystalline fiber are numerically researched. The simulation results show that thermal effects can be effectively reduced by enhancing the convective coefficient and decreasing the diameter of single crystalline fiber. For the most thin-rod single crystalline fibers utilized with diameter of 1 mm and length of 40 mm, the maximum heat load is only about 107 W due to the thermal rupture effect, which limits the laser output power to ~1 kW levels. The numerical results provide references for the developments and designing of thin-rod SCF laser
We report a lossless all-fiber 7x1 signal combiner, which can be used to combine more than 10 kW laser power. The measured power transmission efficiency is larger than 98.1% and power handle capability is more than 2 kilowatt (kW) for each port. When the combiner is put on a 20°C water cool plate, the average temperature rise is less than 3°C/kW. Due to the nearly lossless efficiency and good thermal performance, we can conclude that this combiner is capable of more than 10 kW power.
The design of annular doping region located in the cladding can reduce signal overlap with the doped region in order to reduce saturation and minimize gain compression, which has important applications in EDFAs. Here, we present the design and power scaling characterization of a cladding-pumped amplifier with ytterbium dopant located in an annular region near the ultra low NA core in the cladding, which is found to be a promising way to achieve multi-kilowatt single mode fiber lasers. The ultra low NA ensures that the fiber amplifiers operate in single mode state, which results to that the fiber amplifiers are free of the limitation of the transverse mode instability, and that the mode field of the signal laser extends into the cladding to extract gain amplification. The annular ytterbium-doped region located in the cladding can overcome the contradiction between high doping concentration and ultra-low NA design, which can simultaneously obtain high pump absorption with ultra low NA. The size of annular ytterbium-doped region under different core NA has been studied for various core sizes, which shows that the optimal size of annular ytterbium-doped region is related to the core NA and the core size. Detail analysis of high power amplification of cladding-ring-up-doped ultra low NA single mode fiber amplifier has been presented, which includes various nonlinear effects and thermal effects. It shows that, due to the specific design, the single mode characterization of the fiber is less influenced by the detrimental thermo-optic effect, which means that the cladding-annular-doped ultra-low NA fiber has high mode instability threshold than the ultra-low NA fiber with the core being fully uniformly doped. The cladding-pumped fiber amplifiers based on cladding-annular-doped ultra low NA fiber has the capability to achieve >10kW single mode fiber lasers.
The peak power of pump pulse is a key factor in the generation of supercontinuum source. Observably, as the peak power of the pump pulse increases, the spectral range of the supercontinuum becomes wider. In order to study the blue shift limit of PCF fiber at different peak powers, in our experiment, the change in peak power is achieved by introducing a different length of chirped fiber after the oscillator to vary the pulse width. The pump source is a self-made laser with pulse duration, operating wavelength and repetition rate of 12 ps, 1064 nm and 68 MHz, respectively, which are injected into the photonic crystal fiber after three stages of amplification. Finally, a supercontinuum with an average power of 358 W in the spectral range of 466 nm to 2400 nm was achieved. Experiments have shown that the introduction of large positive chirp has a significant effect on the supercontinuum of the 10 W class, but for a supercontinuum with a sufficiently high average power (over 100 W level supercontinuum spectrum). after the peak power threshold is exceeded, further blue shift of the spectrum cannot be achieved by increasing the peak power, but the high peak power helps to improve the spectral flatness of the supercontinuum. The four-wave mixing, dispersive wave generation, radiation trapping with the soliton play much important role in the blue-shift of SC spectrum, but the short-wave edge is limited by the group velocity matching condition, which is determined by the dispersion characteristics of the PCF, not only peak power of the pump pulse. In order to further extend the short-wave spectrum, other methods are required, for example, changing the structural characteristic of the PCF, etc.
We fabricated and reported a pedestal fiber with Yb/Ce-codoped aluminosilicate (Al2O3-SiO2) core and germanosilicate (GeO2-SiO2) pedestal. This newly-optimized chelate precursor doping technique enables us to make homogeneous large-core pedestal fiber with strong pump absorption from Yb3+ ions about 3.66dB/m at 915nm. The fiber core was homogeneously doped with 4450ppm Yb3+, 11600ppm Al3+ and 1800ppm Ce3+, and surrounded by pedestal layers with 25000ppm Ge4+. The results indicate all-gas-phase chelate precursor doping technique is highly competitive for the fabrication of pedestal fiber towards narrow-linewidth fiber laser.
A direct diode-pumped all-fiber-integrated fiber laser based on backward pumping master oscillator power amplifier configuration at 1080 nm, producing maximum output power of 4.115 kW based on 25/400 μm fiber with corresponding linear fitting optical to optical efficiency of 78.39% was demonstrated. The suppression ratio of stimulated Raman scattering is better than 35dB and it can be further optimized by decreasing the seed input power. Near diffractionlimited beam quality (M2 are 1.7and 1.6 in the x and y directions based on 4-sigma method) is also achieved at the maximum output power. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report for 4 kW near-diffraction-limited fiber lasers based on 25/400 μm fiber directly pumped by laser diodes.
To investigate the laser performance of Ce/ Yb-codoped aluminosilicate (Al2O3-SiO2) binary glass fiber, we took commercial Nufern-20/400-9M fiber as a research object. 0.95 kW laser output power at 1066 nm with an optical-to-optical efficiency of 83.3% was achieved at fiber laser amplifier stage. Beam quality of Mx2 and My2 is 1.56 and 1.68 at 0.95 kW, respectively. The results indicate Nufern-20/400-9M fiber may be suitable
Transverse mode instability becomes the main limit for power scaling of high power fiber lasers with nearly diffraction-limited beam. Compared to conventional step index fiber, this paper proposes a partially doped fiber, which can decrease coupling coefficient between fundamental mode and higher order mode. Based on a coupled mode model, this designed fiber is proved to suppress transverse mode instability effect and promising for power scaling of fiber lasers. Furthermore, we investigate the impact of doped region on transverse mode instability threshold, and propose a partially doped fiber, which can realize 5 kW in single mode regime theoretically.
Based on a master oscillator power amplifier configuration, laser performance of commercial Nufern-20/400-8M Ybdoped aluminophosphosilicate ternary laser fiber was investigated. Pumped by 976 nm laser diodes, 982 W laser output power was obtained with a slope efficiency of 84.9%. Spectrum of output was centered at 1066.56nm with 3dB bandwidth less than 0.32 nm, and the nonlinearity suppression ratio was more than 39dB. Beam quality of Mx2 and M2y were 1.55 and 1.75 at 982 W, respectively. The laser performance indicated that Nufern-20/400-8M Yb-doped aluminophosphosilicate ternary laser fiber is highly competitive for industry fiber laser use.
Transverse mode instability (TMI) limits power scaling of fiber lasers. A semianalytical model is established to calculate the TMI threshold in high-power fiber laser systems of the multi-kW-class. A linear inner-cladding fiber can mitigate the TMI effect by smoothing the heat profile and decreasing the nonlinear coupling coefficient along the fiber. We investigate strong pump absorption of a linear inner-cladding fiber, which leads to shorter fiber length. Utilizing a 915-nm copumping scheme, the linear inner-cladding fiber can realize 10-kW output power in single-mode regime theoretically.
We use a semi-analytical model considering pump power saturation in high power fiber laser systems of multi-kW-class to calculate mode instability threshold. A novel designed fiber, linear inner-cladding fiber, can mitigate mode instability effect by decreasing nonlinear coupling coefficient and smoothing heat profile along the fiber. We investigate strong pump absorption of linear inner-cladding fiber, leading to shorter fiber length. With 915 nm pumping, linear inner-cladding fiber can reach 10 kW output power without mode instability in theory.
Time fiducial laser is an important tool for the precise measurement in high energy density physics experiments. The VISAR probe laser is also vital for shock wave diagnostics in ICF experiments. Here, time fiducial laser and VISAR light were generated from one source on SG-III laser facility. After generated from a 1064-nm DFB laser, the laser is modulated by an amplitude modulator driven by 10 GS/s arbitrary waveform generator. Using time division multiplexing technology, the ten-pulse time fiducial laser and the 20-ns VISAR pulse were split by a 1×2 multiplexer and then chosen by two acoustic optic modulators. Using the technique, cost of the system was reduced. The technologies adopted in the system also include pulse polarization stabilization, high precision fiber coupling and energy transmission. The time fiducial laser generated synchronized 12-beam 2ω and 4-beam 3ω laser, providing important reference marks for different detectors and making it convenient for the analysis of diagnostic data. After being amplified by fiber amplifiers and Nd:YAG rod amplifiers, the VISAR laser pulse was frequency-converted to 532-nm pulse by a thermally controlled LBO crystal with final output energy larger than 20 mJ. Finally, the green light was coupled into a 1-mm core diameter, multimode fused silica optical fiber and propagated to the imaging VISAR. The VISAR laser has been used in the VISAR diagnostic physics experiments. Shock wave loading and slowdown processes were measured. Function to measure velocity history of shock wave front movement in different kinds of materials was added to the SG-III laser facility.
FM-to-AM modulations are harmful to output characteristics of large-scale laser facility. In SG-III laser facility, some key techniques have been employed to suppress FM-to-AM modulations. Firstly, phase modulator was arranged at the end of fiber laser injection system to avoid GVD and PMD in the SM fiber system. Secondly, a fiber-based polarization rotated filter was proposed to suppress FM-to-AM modulations independently on each beam. Finally, less wave plates were employed and liquid crystal modulators were coated for decreasing weak etalon effect in preamplifier system. The results indicated that it can reduce the modulation depth less than 10% at a modulation frequency of 2.488GHz in SG-III laser facility.
Multi-FM SSD and CPP was experimentally studied in high fluence and will be equipped on all the beams of SG-III laser facility. The output spectrum of the cascade phase modulators are stable and the residual amplitude modulation is small. FM-to-AM effect caused by free-space propagation after using smoothing by spectral dispersion is theoretically analyzed. Results indicate inserting a dispersion grating in places with larger beam aperture could alleviate the FM-to- AM effect, suggesting minimizing free-space propagation and adopting image relay. Experiments taken on SG-III laser facility indicate when the number of color cycles (Nc) adopts 1, imposing of SSD with 3.3 times diffraction limit (TDL) did not lead to pinhole closure in the spatial filters of the preamplifier and main amplifier with 30-TDL pinhole size. The nonuniformity of the focal spot using Multi-FM SSD and CPP drops to 0.26, comparing to 0.84 only using CPP. The experiments solve some key technical problems using SSD and CPP on SG-III laser facility, and provide a flexible platform for laser-plasma interaction experiments. Combined beam smoothing and polarization smoothing are also analyzed. Simulation results indicate through adjusting dispersion directions of one-dimensional SSD beams in a quad, two-dimensional SSD could be obtained. The near field and far field properties of beams using polarization smoothing were also studied, including birefringent wedge and polarization control plate (PCP). By using PCP, cylindrical vector beams could be obtained. New solutions will be provided to solve the LPI problem encountered in indirect drive laser fusion.
SG-III laser facility is now the largest under-construction laser driver for
inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research in China, whose 48 beams will deliver 180kJ/3ns/3ω energy to target in one shot. Till the summer of 2014, 4 bundle of lasers
have finished their engineering installation and testing, and the A1 laser testing is
undergoing. A round of physics experiment is planned in Oct. 2014 with 5 bundle of
lasers, which means the facility must be prepared for a near-full-capability operation
before the last quarter of 2014. This paper will briefly introduce the latest progress of
the engineering and research progress of SG-III laser facility.
The under-construction SG-III laser facility is a huge high power solid laser driver, which contains 48 beams and is
designed to deliver 180kJ energy at 3ns pulse duration. The testing ending up at September 2012 validated that the first
bundle lasers of SG-III facility had achieved all the designed requirements. And shortly later in December 2012, the first
round of running-in physics experiment provided a preliminary X-ray diagnostic result. In the testing experiment,
detailed analysis of the laser energy, the temporal characteristics, the spatial distribution and the focusing performance
was made by using the Beam Integrated Diagnostic System. The 25kJ 3ω energy produced by the first bundle lasers
created the new domestic record in China. These great progresses in the laser performance and the physics experiment
have already demonstrated that the facility is in excellent accordance with the designs, which establish a solid foundation
for completing all the construction goals.
This paper is focused on the research of SSD and CPP carried out on TIL. A bulk phase modulator with 9.2-GHz modulation frequency is adopted in SSD. The output spectrum of the phase modulator is stable and the residual amplitude modulation is small. FM-to-AM effect caused by free-space propagation after using smoothing by spectral dispersion is theoretically and experimentally studied. Results indicate inserting a dispersion grating in places with larger beam aperture alleviates the FM-to-AM effect, suggesting minimizing free-space propagation and adopting image relay. Experiments indicate when the number of color cycles (Nc) adopts 1, imposing of SSD with 4.26 times diffraction limit (TDL) did not lead to pinhole closure in the spatial filters of the preamplifier with 20 TDL and main amplifier with 26 TDL. Experimental results also indicate SSD didn’t influence the load capacity of the laser facility. The contrast of the 440-μm diameter focal spot with 95% energy included using SSD and CPP drops to 0.47, comparing to 1.71 not using SSD and CPP. When the pulse width of the third harmonic wave is 1 ns and the energy is 1115 J, no damage is found in CPP and other final optics. The experiments solves some key technical problems using SSD and CPP on high-power laser facilities, and provides a flexible platform for the laser-plasma interaction experiments.
The optical pulse generation system of SG-III laser facility is presented. The optical time division
multiplexing (OTDM) technique, high speed electro-optic modulation technique, pulse
single-selected based on polarization independently acousto-optic modulation technique and pulse
polarization stabilization technique applied in low repetition rate mode are successfully employed in
the system. And also the phase modulation unit is at the last stage of the system, which could avoid
FM-AM effect induced in fiber system. The test experiment results showed that the demonstrated
specification is better than the designed to a certain degree.
The laser pulse shape should be varied to meet different requirements of the inertial confinement experiments. Chirped pulse-stacking is an effective method to obtain a long pulse with desired pulse shape using short pulses. We introduce a method to obtain a long pulse shaped by chirped pulse stacking in fiber time-delay lines. We demonstrate an all fiber pulse shape generator that can generate arbitrary pulse shapes by stacking a set of 20-ps pulses output from fiber mode-locking laser. The device offers a 2.2ns arbitrary waveform optical pulse with power up to 30dBm, bandwidth of 0.2nm and a rise time less than 50ps. The output optical pulse has a temporal adjustment precision of 32bit and an amplitude adjustment precision of 10bit. Experimental and theoretical results show that the generator provided the required stability, flexibility, fast rise time and high contrast pulse for laser fusion research.
Ytterbium-doped silica fibers exhibit very broad absorption and emission bands, from 800nm to 1064nm for absorption and 970nm to 1200nm for emission. Therefore wide band lasers can be obtained using a wide variety of pump lasers. In this paper, the characteristics of high-doped Yb3+ fiber are analyzed and verified by experiment and a highly-doped Yb3+ fiber ring laser with short cavity has been presented. Comparing with normal Yb3+doped fiber, the relationship between the important characteristics of the Yb3+doped fiber laser such as threshold power, output power and laser parameters such as pump power, fiber length, output couple ratio is analyzed. Numerical results are coincident with the experiment phenomenon very well. A 1053 nm pulse has been achieved in our fiber laser. The output power is 6mW as pump power is 110mW and the slope efficiency is 17%. The Yb3+ fiber laser we produced can be used as a stable source in obtaining ultrafast pulse, fiber sense and optical communications.
Theory and experimental results on the self-starting passive mode-locked Yb fiber ring laser generating short pulse are reported. The relations between the laser cavity parameters and mode-locked pulse characters are discussed. 980nm LD pumped laser is used as the pump source and high concentration Yb3+-doped fiber is adopted as gain medium. Using the nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) effect of the fiber, self-starting stable mode-locked pulse is obtained, with center wavelength of 1046nm, 3dB bandwidth of 6.01nm and 20dB bandwidth of 16nm. The mode-locked threshold power is 150mW and output power is 26mW with 50MHz repetition rate.
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