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In this work, an all-solid Ytterbium doped double-clad single-mode (SM) large-mode-area (LMA) photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is characterized in a monolithic amplifier setup. The characterized all-solid PCF combines the SM operation of LMA PCFs while maintaining simple splicing of all-solid fibers. The fiber has been tested in a pulsed monolithic forward pumped amplifier system achieving excellent modal properties. The fiber is polarization maintaining and has a mode field diameter of approximately 24 μm. At optimal fiber length the output signal power of the amplifier was measured to 43 W limited by pump power with an optical to optical efficiency of 61 %. Polarization extinction ratios (PER) above 18 dB was observed for all fiber lengths. Simple splicing with splice losses < 0.2 dB and maintained polarization are reported using a standard Fujikura fusion splicer.

Large-mode-area (LMA) photonic crystal fiber (PCF) amplifiers are attractive for high-power amplification of single-mode (SM) narrow-linewidth light. Traditionally, LMA PCF designs include air holes but splicing and interfacing of fibers with air holes is complicated. Recently, this was addressed with the development of a LMA PCF amplifier fiber without air holes but with SM operation maintained. This all-solid fiber can be spliced with standard splicers and thus enables integration of PCFs into all-fiber monolithic laser systems. The new fiber, named DC-250/30-PM-Yb-FUD, is demonstrated in a free-space configuration for high-power amplification of 1064 nm light with a narrow linewidth of less than 20 kHz. A seed power of 380 mW is amplified to 40 W, corresponding to a single-stage gain of 20 dB, with an optical to optical efficiency of 69%. No indication of stimulated Brillouin scattering is observed, and the output is stable during frequency modulation of the seed laser.

We demonstrate a flexible cross-correlated (C2) imaging method in the time domain by application of a tunable and highly flexible light source. An advantage of the flexible C2method is shown by characterization of the step-index fiber (SMF28) over a broad range of wavelengths from 870nm to 1090nm and by the modal analysis of the distributed modal filtering (DMF) rod fiber within a wavelength range from 1050nm to 1090nm. Also, the influence of the spectral shape and bandwidth on the imaging trace is investigated by deliberately adjusting the input spectrum of the light source. The modal intensity as well as the phase distribution are extracted by the alternative method of 2D FT filtering. Being exceptionally tunable the flexible C2 method gives an ability to adapt the system’s parameters in a desired manner satisfying even measurements of very specific fiber designs opening up new possibilities for advanced modal characterization of fibers over broad range of wavelengths.

Thermally induced nonlinear mode coupling leads to transverse mode instability (TMI) in high power fiber amplifiers. A numerical model including altering mode profiles from thermal effects and waveguide perturbations predicts a TMI threshold of ~200W.

We demonstrate a high power fiber (85μm core) amplifier delivering up to 292Watts of average output power using a mode-locked 30ps source at 1032nm. Utilizing a single mode distributed mode filter bandgap rod fiber, we demonstrate 44% power improvement before the threshold-like onset of mode instabilities by operating the rod fiber in a leaky waveguide regime. We investigate the guiding dynamics of the rod fiber and report a distinct bandgap blue-shifting as function of increased signal power level. Furthermore, we theoretically analyze the guiding dynamics of the DMF rod fiber and explain the bandgap blue-shifting with thermally induced refractive index change of the refractive index profile.

A large-mode-area Ytterbium-doped photonic crystal fiber amplifier with build-in gain shaping is presented. The fiber cladding consists of a hexagonal lattice of air holes, where three rows are replaced with circular high-index inclusions. Seven missing air holes define the large-mode-area core. Light confinement is achieved by combined index and bandgap guiding, which allows for single-mode operation and gain shaping through distributed spectral filtering of amplified spontaneous emission. The fiber properties are ideal for amplification in the long wavelength regime of the Ytterbium gain spectrum above 1100 nm, and red shifting of the maximum gain to 1130 nm is demonstrated.

We demonstrate a Single-Mode (SM) Large-Mode-Area (LMA) ytterbium-doped PCF rod fiber laser with stable and close to diffraction limited beam quality with 110W output power. Distributed-Mode-Filtering (DMF) elements integrated in the cladding of the rod fiber provide a robust spatial mode with a Mode-Field-Diameter (MFD) of 59 mu m. We further demonstrate high pulse energy Second-Harmonic-Generation (SHG) and Third Harmonic Generation (THG) using a simple Q-switched single-stage rod fiber laser cavity architecture reaching pulse energies up to 1mJ at 515nm and 0.5mJ at 343nm. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America

We perform modal characterization on an ytterbium-doped large mode area photonic-crystal-fiber (PCF) amplifier using spatial and spectral (S 2) resolved imaging and compare results to conventional cutoff methods. We apply numerical simulations and step-index fiber experiments to calibrate our mathematical and experimental routines of our S2 imaging system. We systematically analyze higher-order-mode (HOM) content of a polarizing 40-m core double-clad PCF amplifier with various launching and coiling configurations. We demonstrate a HOM suppression of more than -24 dB with variance of 2.3 dB. © 2011 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).