Designing hybrid-guidance large mode area fiber for high-power lasers

Abstract

All-solid large-mode-area antiresonant fibers possess unique characteristics of broadband, low-loss transmission of fundamental mode with effective single mode operation. Hinging on the principle, we propose a unique hybrid guidance mechanism, combining antiresonant guidance with total internal reflection-based guidance to design bend-tolerant, ultra large mode field area (>3000 µm2) fibers for high-power laser applications. Low-index rods are strategically interspersed into the antiresonant cladding to enhance the modal confinement in the fiber, resulting in lower confinement loss of the fundamental mode and its increased tolerance to bending and to the refractive index dip caused by non-uniform doping of active ions in the fiber core. We show that total internal reflection guidance greatly helps confine the fundamental mode without masking the characteristic features of antiresonant guidance, like effective single mode operation over broad spectral bandwidth. We present a detailed theoretical analysis to design a bendable, effectively single-moded passive and active hybrid-guidance antiresonant fibers, optimized to work in the 1 µm wavelength band. The design principles are universal and can be extended to shift the operating wavelength to the 2 µm range as well.