Mode Area Scaling Research Articles

Seeing the strong suppression of higher order modes in single trench fiber using the S2 technique.

The single trench fiber (STF) is a promising fiber design for mode area scaling and higher order mode (HOM) suppression. In this Letter, we experimentally demonstrate the strong HOM-suppression in a homemade STF using the spatially and spectrally resolved imaging (S2) technique. This STF has a 20-µm core and its performance is compared to a conventional step-index fiber with almost the same parameter. Results show that the bending loss of the HOM in STF is 8-times larger than conventional fiber at a bend radius of 7 cm. In addition, when severe coupling mismatch is introduced at the input end of the fiber, the STF can keep the fundamental-mode output while the conventional fiber cannot. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time to experimentally analyze the HOM content in an STF and compare its performance with that of a conventional fiber. Our results indicate the great potential of the STF for filtering the HOM in fiber laser applications.

Leakage channels enabled multi-resonant all-solid photonic bandgap fiber for effective single-mode propagation.

All-solid photonic bandgap fiber (AS-PBGF) has been fully demonstrated to be a promising candidate of large-mode-area fiber for its mode-dependent selectivity and spectral filtering mechanism. In the present work, the concepts of multiple-resonant coupling and leakage channels are taken into consideration simultaneously for mode area scaling of AS-PBGF. The single-mode performance and bending resistance of a modified structure, called leakage channels enabled multi-resonant AS-PBGF (LC-PBGF), are evaluated numerically. Robust single-mode transmission is guaranteed by a specially designed microstructure cladding with only four layers of germanium-doped rods. Multi-resonant cores in the inner layers and leakage channels in the outermost layer, resulting from missing rods in the microstructure cladding, are employed to generate modal dissipation of high-order modes under bent configuration. The missing germanium-doped rods in each layer are properly designed to eliminate the dependence on bending direction, leading to differential bending loss between fundamental mode and high-order-modes with high loss ratio. In addition, some typical derivative structures based on the LC-PBGF concept have also been proved to have great potential for effective single-mode operation.

Breaking the Stringent Trade-Off Between Mode Area and NA for Efficient High-Power Fiber Lasers Around 2 μm

We propose a novel approach of exploiting the LP02 mode in ultra-high NA confined-doped M-type fibers to ensure effective single-mode operation, thereby breaking the trade-off between mode-area scaling and ultra-high NA. This novel approach opens the door to highly rare-earth doped fibers suitable for power scaling applications. Therefore enabling, simultaneously scaling of power and slope efficiency of fiber lasers.

Bendable large-mode-area fiber with a non-circular core.

We investigate mode-area-scaling and bending performances of a Yb-doped large-mode-area fiber with an elongated non-circular core. Such fiber can be bent in the plane of its short axis to suppress bending effects, such as mode area reduction and mode profile distortion. Meanwhile, the other orthogonal axis can be stretched for mode area scaling. Calculations show that for fibers with the same mode area, the higher the aspect ratio between the long axis and short axis, the less sensitive the fiber will be to bending effects. However, mode area scaling is limited by the increased beat length (BL) between the fundamental mode (FM) and the second-order mode, leading to mode degeneracy at higher aspect ratios. Within the 100mm BL, the FM area is scalable to 3000 μm2 in a bent fiber. To facilitate FM operation, we study mode-selective gain through confined doping. Thanks to the small bending distortions, the confined-doping approach works well in the bent large-mode-area fiber. In addition, the advantage of tandem pumping is also discussed in terms of preferential modal gain. A non-circular core fiber with a 41μm short axis and 120μm long axis was fabricated in-house. We evaluated the fiber in a linear laser cavity pumped by a 975nm laser diode. The maximum output power obtained was 191W, with slope efficiency of approximately 67% with respect to launched pump power. The output signal has good beam qualities with M2 of ∼1.5 and ∼3.1, respectively, along the short and long axis.

115 W fiber laser with an all solid-structure and a large-mode-area multicore fiber.

We investigate mode-area scaling by means of supermode operation in an all-solid multicore fiber. To obtain a large-mode area (LMA), we designed and fabricated an active double-clad multicore fiber, where each ytterbium-doped core is 19μm in diameter and has a numerical aperture of 0.067, comparable to the core of the largest available commercial LMA fibers. The six large cores are stacked tightly in a ring structure to enable phase locking of the core fields and supermode operation. The fiber laser performance was investigated in a linear laser cavity with an external Talbot resonator for mode selection. The highest output power achieved was 115W with an overall 61% slope efficiency corresponding to the pump power. The measured M2 was 1.43 for the central lobe with nearly 70% of the total power.

A Modified Bend-Resistant Multitrench Fiber With Two Gaps

We propose and investigate a modified multitrench fiber (MTF) design with two gaps numerically through the scalar FD-BPM algorithm. Excellent potential in mode area scaling, suppression of high-order modes (HOMs), and resistance to bending is demonstrated. Loss ratio between HOMs and the fundamental mode is more than 50 possibly over a wide range of high-index-ring thickness, gap width, bending radius, and bending orientation. Therefore, the required fabrication accuracy decreases. At 1050-nm wavelength and 20-cm bend radius, large effective mode area (920 μm2 ) is achievable with high loss ratio (>100). The fabricating technologies, carving grooves in the ordinary MTF and inserting rods in these grooves, can be possibly used to fabricate our modified two-gap-MTF.

Extending mode areas of single-mode all-solid photonic bandgap fibers.

Mode area scaling of optical fiber is highly desirable for high power fiber laser applications. It is well known that incorporation of additional smaller cores in the cladding can be used to resonantly out-couple higher-order modes from a main core to suppress higher-order-mode propagation in the main core. Using a novel design with multiple coupled smaller cores in the cladding, we have successfully demonstrated a single-mode photonic bandgap fiber with record effective mode area of ~2650µm(2). Detailed numeric studies have been conducted for multiple cladding designs. For the optimal designs, the simulated minimum higher-order-mode losses are well over two orders of magnitudes higher than that of fundamental mode when expressed in dBs. To our knowledge, this is the best higher-order-mode suppression ever found in fibers with this large effective mode areas. We have also experimentally validated one of the designs. M(2)<1.08 across the transmission band was demonstrated.

Demonstration of ultra-low NA rare-earth doped step index fiber for applications in high power fiber lasers

In this paper, we report the mode area scaling of a rare-earth doped step index fiber by using low numerical aperture. Numerical simulations show the possibility of achieving an effective area of ~700 um² (including bend induced effective area reduction) at a bend diameter of 32 cm from a 35 μm core fiber with a numerical aperture of 0.038. An effective single mode operation is ensured following the criterion of the fundamental mode loss to be lower than 0.1 dB/m while ensuring the higher order modes loss to be higher than 10 dB/m at a wavelength of 1060 nm. Our optimized modified chemical vapor deposition process in conjunction with solution doping process allows fabrication of an Yb-doped step index fiber having an ultra-low numerical aperture of ~0.038. Experimental results confirm a Gaussian output beam from a 35 μm core fiber validating our simulation results. Fiber shows an excellent laser efficiency of ~81%and aM² less than 1.1.

Extending single mode performance of all-solid large-mode-area single trench fiber.

We report a novel "single trench fiber" design for mode area scaling of the fundamental mode while offering effective single mode operation for a compact fiber laser device. This fiber design allows very high suppression of the higher order modes by offering high loss and power delocalization. It has the advantages of low cost and easy fabrication thanks to all solid fiber design, cylindrical symmetry, and higher refractive index of core as that of the cladding. A Yb-doped single trench fiber with a 40 µm core diameter has been fabricated from modified chemical vapor deposition process in conjunction with solution-doping offering an effective mode area of as large as ~1,000 µm(2) at 1,060 nm for the bend radius of 20 cm. Detailed characterizations confirm a robust single mode behavior of the fiber. Comparative analysis with other fiber designs shows significant performance enhancement of effective single mode operation suitable for fiber laser applications.

Ytterbium-doped large-mode-area all-solid photonic bandgap fiber lasers.

Single-mode operation in a large-mode-area fiber laser is highly desired for power scaling. We have, for the first time, demonstrated a 50μm-core-diameter Yb-doped all-solid photonic bandgap fiber laser with a mode area over 4 times that of the previous demonstration. 75W output power has been generated with a diffraction-limited beam and an efficiency of 70% relative to the launched pump power. We have also experimentally confirmed that a robust single-mode regime exists near the high frequency edge of the bandgap. These fibers only guide light within the bandgap over a narrow spectral range, which is essential for lasing far from the gain peak and suppression of stimulated Raman scattering. This work demonstrates the strong potential for mode area scaling of in single-mode all-solid photonic bandgap fibers.

Optical solitons in graded-index multimode fibres

Solitons are non-dispersing localized waves that occur in diverse physical settings, including liquids, optical fibres, plasmas and condensed matter. They attract interest owing to their particle-like nature and are useful for applications such as in telecommunications. A variety of optical solitons have been observed, but versions that involve both spatial and temporal degrees of freedom are rare. Optical fibres designed to support multiple transverse modes offer opportunities to study wave propagation in a setting that is intermediate between single-mode fibre and free-space propagation. Here we report the observation of optical solitons and soliton self-frequency shifting in graded-index multimode fibre. These wave packets can be modelled as multicomponent solitons, or as solitons of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Solitons in graded-index fibres should enable increased data rates in low-cost telecommunications systems, are pertinent to space-division multiplexing, and can offer a new route to mode-area scaling for high-power lasers and transmission.

Mode area scaling with multi-trench rod-type fibers.

We propose a novel all-solid rod-type fiber structure that presents a cylindrical symmetry and low refractive-index contrasts. Effectively single-mode propagation for the fundamental mode is ensured thanks to resonant couplings between Higher Order Modes (HOMs) and cladding modes. Numerical simulations demonstrate the possibility of achieving a fundamental mode effective area as large as 5000 µm² at a wavelength of 1.06 μm in fibers ensuring a high leakage loss ratio (>100) between the HOMs and the fundamental mode while keeping the fundamental mode leakage losses at a level lower than 0.2dB/m. Further scaling to an effective area of 12,200 µm2 at 1.06 μm in an effectively single-mode fiber is also presented by exploiting the power delocalization of several HOMs on top of the high-leakage loss filtering.

Semi-guiding high-aspect-ratio core (SHARC) fiber amplifiers with ultra-large core area for single-mode kW operation in a compact coilable package

A new class of optical fiber, the SHARC fiber, is analyzed in a high-power fiber amplifier geometry using the gain-filtering properties of confined-gain dopants. The high-aspect-ratio (~30:1) rectangular core allows mode-area scaling well beyond 10,000 μm2, which is critical to high-pulse-energy or narrow-linewidth high-power fiber amplifiers. While SHARC fibers offer modally dependent edge loss at the wide "semi-guiding" edge of the waveguide, the inclusion of gain filtering adds further modal discrimination arising from the variation of the spatial overlap of the gain with the various modes. Both methods are geometric in form, such that the combination provides nearly unlimited scalability in mode area. Simulations show that for kW-class fiber amplifiers, only the fundamental mode experiences net gain (15 dB), resulting in outstanding beam quality. Further, misalignment of the seed beam due to offset, magnification, and tilt are shown to result in a small (few percent) efficiency penalty while maintaining kW-level output with 99% of the power in the fundamental mode for all cases.

Large mode area fibers with asymmetric bend compensation

Fibers with asymmetrical bend compensation offer to completely remove the tradeoff between mode area and single-modedness, with potentially huge impact on high-power amplification. These fibers would be difficult to fabricate, but are the only fundamental-mode strategy that can remove the bend-distortion limitations on mode-area scaling. Here, we show that even imperfect fibers can achieve essentially complete HOM suppression for areas of 2000 square microns or larger. Ultimate performance limits due to finite cladding size and fabrication imperfections are calculated.

The influence of index-depressions in core-pumped Yb-doped large pitch fibers

Rare-earth doped photonic crystal fibers rely ideally on an index matching of the doped core to the surrounding glass to work properly. Obtaining a perfect index matching is technologically very challenging, and fiber manufacturers opt for targeting an index depression instead, which still ensures the influence of the photonic structure on the light propagation. In this paper the analysis of the influence of this core index depression on the higher-order mode discrimination and on the beam quality of the fundamental mode of different designs of core-pumped active large pitch photonic crystal fibers is discussed. The most promising design is evaluated in terms of mode area scaling with a view to mode field diameters above 100 µm. Detailed requirements on the accuracy of the core index matching are deduced.

Mode-area scaling of helical-core, dual-clad fiber lasers and amplifiers using an improved bend-loss model: erratum

Mode-area scaling of helical-core, dual-clad fiber lasers and amplifiers using an improved bend-loss model: erratum

Mode-area scaling of helical-core, dual-clad fiber lasers and amplifiers using an improved bend-loss model

For small-bend radii, the waveguide condition for total internal reflection is violated in a large angular spread of incident angles at the interface of the fiber core. To account for this, we derived an improved semianalytic bend-loss model that allows for the propagation of radiated fields outside the plane of the fiber bend. This new model is applied to large-mode-area helical-core fibers (which require small-bend radii) for use as high-power fiber lasers and amplifiers. In particular, the limits of scaling the mode area while maintaining good beam quality are explored. Single-mode operation is expected for a 40 μm core with a 0.10 numerical aperture, and scaling to a 100 μm core diameter is shown to be possible. Additionally, helical fibers are shown to readily perform where conventional coiled fibers are not appropriate to operate long term.

Core Size Scaling of Helical-Core Optical Fibres

The mode-area scaling properties of helical-core optical fibres arenumerically studied and the limit of core size for achievablesingle-mode operation is explored. By appropriate design, helical-corefibres can operate in a single mode with possible scaling up to300 μm in core diameter with numerical aperture 0.1.