Mode field diameter preserving fiber tapers.

An approach for preserving the mode field diameter (MFD) in fiber tapers is demonstrated. The approach utilizes concentric dual-core fibers, which couple light from an inner core to an outer core through a taper. Fibers with a 6 µm MFD feedthrough and a 15 µm polarization maintaining feedthrough are demonstrated experimentally. Simulations of the MFD in the tapered dual-core fibers are also presented.

Cut-off analysis of 19-cell Yb-doped double-cladding rod-type photonic crystal fibers.

Yb-doped double-cladding large mode area rod-type photonic crystal fibers are a key component for power scaling in fiber laser systems. Recently, designs with 19-cell core defect, that is with 19 missing air-holes in the center of the photonic crystal cladding, have been proposed, with reported core diameter up to 100 µm. In this paper an analysis of the cut-off wavelength of the first high-order mode in such low-NA fibers is reported, accounting for different approaches for the definition of the cladding effective index. Results have shown that taking into account the finite fiber cross-section and considering the first cladding mode of the actual fiber is mandatory to obtain a correct estimate of the cut-off wavelength.

167 W, power scalable ytterbium-doped photonic bandgap fiber amplifier at 1178 nm.

An ytterbium-doped photonic bandgap fiber amplifier operating at the long wavelength edge of the ytterbium gain band is investigated for high power amplification. The spectral filtering effect of the photonic bandgap efficiently suppresses amplified spontaneous emission at the conventional ytterbium gain wavelengths and thus enables high power amplification at 1178 nm. A record output power of 167 W, a slope efficiency of 61% and 15 dB saturated gain at 1178 nm have been demonstrated using the ytterbium-doped photonic bandgap fiber.

High-power Yb-doped photonic bandgap fiber amplifier at 1150-1200 nm.

Ytterbium-doped solid-core photonic bandgap fiber amplifiers operating at the long-wavelength edge of the ytterbium gain band are reported. The low-loss bandgap transmission window is formed in the very low gain region, whilst outside the bandgap, large attenuation inhibits the exponential growth of amplified spontaneous emission in the huge-gain 1030-1100 nm region. Hence parasitic-lasing-free, high-power amplification with a marked efficiency is enabled. A 32 W output at 1156 nm with a 66% slope efficiency and 30 W output at 1178 nm with a 58% slope efficiency were successfully obtained. To our knowledge, these are the highest output powers generating from active photonic bandgap fibers, as well as from ytterbium-doped fiber lasers at these wavelengths.

Amplification and ASE suppression in a polarization-maintaining ytterbium-doped all-solid photonic bandgap fibre.

We demonstrate suppression of amplified spontaneous emission at the conventional ytterbium gain wavelengths around 1030 nm in a cladding-pumped polarization-maintaining ytterbium-doped all-solid photonic crystal fibre. The fibre works through combined index and bandgap guiding. Furthermore, we show that the peak of the amplified spontaneous emission can be shifted towards longer wavelengths by rescaling the fibre dimensions. Thereby one can obtain lasing or amplification at longer wavelengths (1100 nm - 1200 nm) as the amount of amplification in the fibre is shown to scale with the power of the amplified spontaneous emission.

Single-polarization ultra-large-mode-area Yb-doped photonic crystal fiber.

We report on an ytterbium-doped single-transverse-mode rod-type photonic crystal fiber that combines the advantages of low nonlinearity and intrinsic polarization stability. The mode-field-area of the fundamental mode is as large as 2300 microm(2). An output power of up to 163 W with a degree of polarization better than 85% has been extracted from a simple fiber laser setup without any additional polarizing element within the cavity than the fiber itself. The beam quality has been characterized by a M(2) value of 1.2. The single-polarization window ranges from 1030 to 1080 nm, hence possesses an excellent overlap with the gain profile of ytterbium-doped silica fibers. To the best of our knowledge this fiber design has the largest mode-field-diameter ever reported for polarizing or even polarization maintaining rare-earth-doped double-clad fibers.

Phase locking and supermode selection in multicore photonic crystal fiber lasers with a large doped area.

We report on the laser properties of multicore photonic crystal fiber lasers. A stable phase locking of six- and seven-core structures through evanescent coupling is observed. Effective supermode selection is obtained by using both diffraction losses and the Talbot effect. A pure in-phase supermode is obtained (1.1 times diffraction limited). The laser operating in this mode has a slope efficiency of 70% with up to 44 W of output power. The modal area of the in-phase supermode multicore fiber is 1150 microm2, which makes it, to our knowledge, the single-mode fiber laser with the largest mode field area. In-phase laser action is stable when the fiber is bent.

High-power rod-type photonic crystal fiber laser.

We report on a novel ytterbium-doped fiber design that combines the advantages of rod and fiber gain media. The fiber design has outer dimensions of a rod laser, meaning a diameter in the range of a few millimeters and a length of just a few tens of centimeters, and includes two important waveguide structures, one for pump radiation and one for laser radiation. We obtained 120-W output power in single-mode beam quality from a 48-cm-long fiber cane that corresponds to an extracted power of 250 W/m. The fiber has significantly reduced nonlinearity, which therefore allows for scalability in the performance of a high-peak-power fiber laser and amplifier system.

Stress-induced single-polarization single-transverse mode photonic crystal fiber with low nonlinearity.

We report on the design of a single-polarization single-transverse mode large mode area photonic crystal fiber. By including index-matched stress applying elements in the photonic cladding an ultra-broadband single polarization window is obtained while a large mode field area of ~700 microm(2) is maintained. Based on that design, an Yb-doped double-clad photonic crystal fiber is realized that combines low nonlinearity and single polarization properties. A first result of the high power operation using this fiber is demonstrated.

All-fiber format compression of frequency chirped pulses in air-guiding photonic crystal fibers.

Air-cored, photonic band-gap crystal fibers exhibiting low nonlinearity and anomalous chromatic dispersion in spectral ranges inaccessible to conventional fibers can be used in the realization of all-fiber-format pulse compressors with unprecedented peak powers and wavelength diversity. Linear compression of inherently chirped and prestretched pulses by factors ranging from 20 to 80 around 1.0 and 1.5 microm have allowed generation of pulses as short as 163 fs. The results show that totally integrated femtosecond fiber laser sources can be realized throughout the visible and near-infrared and point to the possibility of megawatt peak and tens of watt average in-fiber power levels.

Low-nonlinearity single-transverse-mode ytterbium-doped photonic crystal fiber amplifier.

We report on an air-clad large-core single-transverse-mode ytterbium-doped photonic crystal fiber with a mode-field-diameter of 35 microm, corresponding to a mode-field-area of ~1000 microm(2). In a first experiment this fiber is used to amplify 10-ps pulses to a peak power of 60 kW without significant spectral broadening due to self-phase modulation allowing for the frequency up-conversion of these pulses using narrow-bandwidth phase matched nonlinear crystals.

High-power air-clad large-mode-area photonic crystal fiber laser.

We report on a 2.3 m long air-clad ytterbium-doped large-modearea photonic crystal fiber laser generating up to 80 W output power with a slope efficiency of 78%. Single transverse mode operation is achieved with a mode-field area of 350 microm2. No thermo-optical limitations are observed at the extracted ~35W/m, therefore such fibers allow scaling to even higher powers.

Multi-mode photonic crystal fibers for VCSEL based data transmission.

Quasi error-free 10Gbit/s data transmission is demonstrated over a novel type of 50 microm core diameter photonic crystal fi ber with as much as 100m length. Combined with 850 nm VCSEL sources, this fi ber is an attractive alternative to graded-index multi-mode fi bers for datacom applications. A comparison to numerical simulations suggests that the high bit-rate may be partly explained by inter-modal diffusion.

All-fiber chirped pulse amplification using highly-dispersive air-core photonic bandgap fiber.

We show, for the first time to our knowledge, all-fiber chirped pulse amplification using an air-core photonic bandgap fiber. Pulses from a wavelength- and duration-tunable femtosecond/picosecond source at 10 GHz were dispersed in 100 m of dispersion compensating fiber before being amplified in an erbium-doped fiber amplifier and subsequently recompressed in 10 m of the anomalously dispersive photonic bandgap fiber. Pulses as short as 1.1 ps were obtained. As air-core fibers present negligible nonlinearity, the presented configuration can potentially be used to obtain ultra-high pulse peak powers. A study of the air-core fiber dispersion and dispersion slope is also presented.

Spectral broadening of femtosecond pulses into continuum radiation in microstructured fibers.

We report on the influence of the choice of the pump wavelength relative to the zero-dispersion wavelength for continuum generation in microstructured fibers. Different nonlinear mechanisms are observed depending on whether the pump is located in the normal or anomalous dispersion region. Raman scattering and the wavelength dependence of the group delay of the fiber are found to play an important role in the process. We give an experimental and numerical analysis of the observed phenomena and find a good agreement between the two.

Analysis of air-guiding photonic bandgap fibers.

We present what is to our knowledge the first theoretical analysis of air-guiding photonic bandgap fibers. The fibers are characterized by a large hollow core and a microstructured cladding exhibiting photonic bandgap effects. Using an efficient, full-vectorial numerical method, we explain the operational principle of the fibers and obtain detailed information about the properties of the air-guided modes. This information includes accurate determination of the modes' spectral extent, cutoff properties, and mode-field distributions.

Silica-air photonic crystal fiber design that permits waveguiding by a true photonic bandgap effect.

A theoretical investigation of a novel type of optical fiber is presented. The operation of the fiber relies entirely on wave guidance through the photonic bandgap effect and not on total internal reflection, thereby distinguishing that fiber from all other known fibers, including recently studied photonic crystal fibers. The novel fiber has a central low-index core region and a cladding consisting of a silica background material with air holes situated within a honeycomb lattice structure. We show the existence of photonic bandgaps for the silica-air cladding structure and demonstrate how light can be guided at the central low-index core region for a well-defined frequency that falls inside the photonic bandgap region of the cladding structure.

Photonic band gap guidance in optical fibers

A fundamentally different type of optical waveguide structure is demonstrated, in which light is confined to the vicinity of a low-index region by a two-dimensional photonic band gap crystal. The waveguide consists of an extra air hole in an otherwise regular honeycomb pattern of holes running down the length of a fine silica glass fiber. Optical fibers based on this waveguide mechanism support guided modes with extraordinary properties.