Competence Center for Specialty Optical Fibers

To prevent the thermally induced spatial beam degradation occurring in high-power fiber lasers and amplifiers, index-depressed core “fully aperiodic large-pitch fibers” (FA-LPFs) have been designed and fabricated. In contrast to previous experimental works performed on FA-LPFs, in which the active core and the surrounding cladding material are quasi-index-matched, the core refractive index is in slight depression compared to the surrounding material (Δn ≈-3x10-5). Thus, the index-depressed fiber core tends first to behave as an anti-guide, preventing light from being properly guided into it. However, by increasing the absorbed pump power, the thermal load induces a parabolic refractive index change sufficient to compensate for the -3x10-5 index depression in the core, enabling a robust single-mode amplification at high average power. As a proof of concept, using a 110 µm depressed core FA-LPF, M2 values of 1.3 were demonstrated in amplifier configuration from 60Wto a maximal value of 170Wof emitted average power only limited by the available pump power.