Open AccessYtterbium-doped all glass leakage channel fibers with highly fluorine-doped silica pump cladding
Author(s) -
Liang Dong,
H. A. McKay,
Libin Fu,
Michiharu Ohta,
Andrius Marcinkevičius,
Shigeru Suzuki,
M. E. Fermann
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.17.008962
Subject(s) - materials science , all silica fiber , cladding (metalworking) , plastic clad silica fiber , ytterbium , fiber laser , hard clad silica optical fiber , leakage (economics) , glass fiber , optics , doping , optical fiber , double clad fiber , composite material , optoelectronics , plastic optical fiber , fiber , fiber optic sensor , physics , economics , macroeconomics
All glass leakage channel fibers have been demonstrated to be a potential practical solution for power scaling in fiber lasers beyond the nonlinear limits in conventional large mode area fibers. The all glass nature with absence of any air holes is especially useful for allowing the fibers to be used and fabricated much like conventional fibers. Previously, double clad active all glass leakage channel fibers used low index polymer as a pump guide with the drawbacks of being less reliable at high pump powers and not being able to change fiber outer diameter independent of pump guide dimension. In this work, we demonstrate, for the first time, ytterbium-doped double clad all glass leakage channel fibers with highly fluorine-doped silica as pump cladding. The new all glass leakage channel fibers have no polymer in the pump path and have independent control of fiber outer diameters and pump cladding dimension, and, therefore, enable designs with smaller pump guide for high pump absorption and, at the same time, with large fiber diameters to minimize micro and macro bending effects, a much desired features for large core fibers where intermodal coupling can be an issue due to a much increased mode density. An ytterbium-doped double clad PM fiber with core diameter of 80 microm is also reported, which can be coiled in 76 cm diameter coils.