Recent changes in high power optical fibers

Jeong, Y., Codemard, C., Ji, J., Vazquez-Zuniga, L.A., van der Westhuizen, G., Yoo, S., Boyland, A.J., Petrovich, M.N., Poletti, F., Sahu, J.K., Nilsson, J., Richardson, D.J. and Payne, D.N. (2010) Recent changes in high power optical fibers. ICOOPMA 2010: International Conference on Optical, Optoelectronic and Photonic Materials and Applications, Budapest, Hungary. 15 - 21 Aug 2010.

Abstract

In the past years we have witnessed remarkable advances in optical fiber laser and amplifier technologies. Optical fiber lasers of output powers beyond a kilowatt or multi-kilowatt with high beam quality have already been demonstrated and started to be deployed in industries. This rapid progress has been stimulated by the exceptional power-handling capability of optical fibers as gain media as well as the availability of powerful diode lasers for use as pumps. The progress was first made at around 1.1 microns with Yb-doping, next around 1.6 microns with Er-doping, and most recently at wavelengths around 2 microns with Tm-doping. Optical fiber lasers have numerous attractions over the more conventional "bulk" lasers in terms of energy-efficiency, power-scalability, thermal-management, flexibility and controllability in spatial/spectral/temporal domains, compactness, cost-effectiveness, and more. Indeed, this optical fiber photonic circuitry combined with pump-diode technology provides a unique high-gain environment for robust designs, which are also all-solid state, compact, reliable, and reproducible. Here we review the recent advances in high power optical fibers with a particular focus on rare-earth-doped optical fibers in conventional double-clad, large-core designs as well as in novel microstructured designs for more refined performances. We also review some passive-type optical fibers particularly devised for high-power operations, e.g. double-clad passive-core fibers for Raman conversion, single-clad fibers and microstructured fibers for four-wave mixing, photonic bandgap fibers for beam delivery. We discuss their fundamental aspects and future prospects, also presenting our up-to-date experimental results based on various high power optical fibers developed at the ORC.

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Contributors

Author: M.N. Petrovich

Author: F. Poletti

Author: J.K. Sahu

Author: J. Nilsson

Author: D.J. Richardson

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