Abstract:
A cladding pumped optical fiber laser (40) comprises a length of optical fiber having a rare earth-doped region of diameter d RE > d 01 , where d 01 is the mode diameter of the LP 01 mode of the fiber at the laser radiation at wavelength λ. In one embodiment the fiber has a core diameter d c selected such that the LP 01 mode is the only guided spatial mode of the fiber, and d RE is greater than d c . In another embodiment the fiber supports at least one higher order guided spatial mode, typically LP 11 or LP 02 , and d RE is approximately equal to or larger than d c . Currently preferred embodiments comprise a grating-defined laser cavity that comprises a mode-coupling refractive index grating (45). Cladding pumped lasers according to the invention will typically have efficient conversion of pump radiation to laser radiation, and consequently can typically be shorter than analogous prior art cladding pumped lasers.
Abstract:
Disclosed are non-periodic microstructured optical fibers that guide radiation by index guiding. By appropriate choice of core region and cladding region, the effective refractive index difference Δ between core region and cladding can be made large, typically greater than 5% or even 10 or 20%. Such high Δ results in small mode field diameter of the fundamental guided mode (typically
Abstract:
Multistage Er-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) advantageously use high numerical aperture (NA) (18) fiber in the input stage, and low NA fiber (19) in the output stage. The former typically is greater than 0.25, and the latter is less than 0.20. Such amplifiers can have high gain and low noise figure.
Abstract:
A cladding-pumped fiber structure is disclosed in which mode mixing of pump light injected into the fiber is induced by index modulation. In one embodiment, the index modulation is created by a stress-inducing region disposed in the cladding which simultaneously maintains the polarization within the core to produce a polarization-maintaining fiber useful for multi-mode and laser applications.
Abstract:
In an optical fiber light source a section of multimode fiber (51) is interposed between an energizing laser (e.g., a diode laser (49)) and a single mode fiber active medium (43). In a preferred embodiment the single mode fiber active medium is surrounded by a multimode cladding (45) coupled to the multimode fiber. The source may serve as a pump laser for a fiber amplifier (30) or as an amplified spontaneous emission source. Arrangements for coupling several energizing lasers to the active medium are also described.
Abstract:
The specification describes a process and apparatus for monitoring and controlling the ellipticity of preform tubes during Modified Chemical Vapor Deposition. In response to computer generated signals from the monitoring device, the tube collapse rate is adjusted dynamically by locally changing the temperature of the glass tube, or by changing the physical force acting to collapse the tube.