Abstract
High-quality coherent wavefronts are extremely useful in optical communications and lasers. Disorder is usually considered as a source of noise and deviation from ideal designs for generating high-quality beams in photonic devices. Here, we demonstrate that strong disorder can be exploited to obtain high-quality wavefronts thanks to the Anderson localization phenomenon. Our analysis on a transverse Anderson localizing optical fiber reveals that a considerable number of the guided modes have M2<2 values. These high-quality modes are distributed across the transverse profile of the disordered fiber and can be excited without requiring sophisticated spatial light modulations at the input facet. The results show the potential of such fibers for novel applications in fiber lasers and nonlinear devices, where a high beam quality is desirable.
Highlights
High-quality single-mode or diffraction-limited beams are of significant importance in lasers [1] and optical communications [2]
Transverse Anderson localization (TAL) [5,6,7,8,9] has recently fostered a new class of disordered waveguides, in which strong transverse confinement mediated by Anderson-localized modes balances the diffraction of light as it propagates freely along the waveguide [10,11,12,13]
In this Letter, we evaluate the beam quality of highly localized modes in a glass-TALOF
Summary
High-quality single-mode or diffraction-limited beams are of significant importance in lasers [1] and optical communications [2]. In this Letter, we evaluate the beam quality of highly localized modes in a glass-TALOF. It is shown that a high degree of wavefront quality can be obtained due to the disorder-induced Anderson localization.
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