LMA fibers with increased higher-order mode loss for high average power, pulsed, diffraction-limited lasers.

We demonstrate new, large-mode area (LMA) gain fibers with ∼25 µm mode-field diameter, and increased higher-order mode loss that enable diffraction limited, pulsed fiber lasers operating at high average power with high pulse energy. We achieved 1.6 mJ, ns pulses, with 1.

Polarization-maintained propagation of a 2200 μm effective-area higher-order-mode in a bent optical fiber.

We report on the excitation and polarization preserved propagation of a very large effective-area (A ∼ 2240 μm) higher-order-mode in an optical fiber. A laser signal operating in the 1 μm wavelength region is transported in a Bessel-like LP mode over a 10 m long section of the polarization-maintaining higher-order-mode fiber. We observe that the light propagates through the fiber with >10 dB polarization-extinction-ratio as the fiber is coiled into circular loops of 40 cm diameter.

Polarization-maintaining, large-effective-area, higher-order-mode fiber.

Higher-order-mode (HOM) fibers guiding light in large-effective-area (A) Bessel-like modes have recently generated great interest for high-power laser applications. A polarization-maintaining (PM) version of HOM fibers can afford the added possibility of coherent beam combination, improved material processing, and polarization multiplexing of high-power fiber lasers. We report a PM-HOM fiber for guiding Bessel-like modes with A ranging from 1200-2800  μm.

Polarization maintaining single-mode low-loss hollow-core fibres.

Hollow-core fibre (HCF) is a powerful technology platform offering breakthrough performance improvements in sensing, communications, higher-power pulse delivery and other applications. Free from the usual constraints on what materials can guide light, it promises qualitatively new and ideal operating regimes: precision signals transmitted free of nonlinearities, sensors that guide light directly in the samples they are meant to probe and so on. However, these fibres have not been widely adopted, largely because uncontrolled coupling between transverse and polarization modes overshadows their benefits.

Higher-order mode fiber enables high energy chirped-pulse amplification.

Energy scaling of femtosecond fiber lasers has been constrained by nonlinear impairments and optical fiber damage. Reducing the optical irradiance inside the fiber by increasing mode size lowers these effects. Using an erbium-doped higher-order mode fiber with 6000 µm(2) effective area and output fundamental mode re-conversion, we show a breakthrough in pulse energy from a monolithic fiber chirped pulse amplification system using higher-order mode propagation generating 300 µJ pulses with duration <500 fs (FWHM) and peak power >600 MW at 1.

Power scaling of high-efficiency 1.5 μm cascaded Raman fiber lasers.

High-power fiber lasers operating at the 1.5 μm wavelength region have attractive features, such as eye safety and atmospheric transparency, and cascaded Raman fiber lasers offer a convenient method to obtain high-power sources at these wavelengths. A limitation to power scaling, however, has been the lower conversion efficiency of these lasers.

Bend compensated large-mode-area fibers: achieving robust single-modedness with transformation optics.

Fibers with symmetric bend compensated claddings are proposed, and demonstrate performance much better than conventional designs. These fibers can simultaneously achieve complete HOM suppression, negligible bend loss, and mode area >1000 square microns. The robust single-modedness of these fibers offers a path to overcoming mode instability limits on high-power amplifiers and lasers.

Low-loss hollow-core fibers with improved single-modedness.

Hollow-core fibers (HCFs) are a revolution in light guidance with enormous potential. They promise lower loss than any other waveguide, but have not yet achieved this potential because of a tradeoff between loss and single-moded operation. This paper demonstrates progress on a strategy to beat this tradeoff: we measure the first hollow-core fiber employing Perturbed Resonance for Improved Single Modedness (PRISM), where unwanted modes are robustly stripped away.

Single-frequency Brillouin distributed feedback fiber laser.

We demonstrate a single-frequency Brillouin distributed feedback laser (DFB). The DFB laser cavity was a 12.4 cm long fiber Bragg grating with a π-phase shift offset from the grating center.

Raman fiber distributed feedback lasers.

We demonstrate fiber distributed feedback (DFB) lasers using Raman gain in two germanosilicate fibers. Our DFB cavities were 124 mm uniform fiber Bragg gratings with a π phase shift offset from the grating center. Our pump was at 1480 nm and the DFB lasers operated on a single longitudinal mode near 1584 nm.

10 kHz accuracy of an optical frequency reference based on (12)C2H2-filled large-core kagome photonic crystal fibers.

Saturated absorption spectroscopy reveals the narrowest features so far in molecular gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber. The 48-68 mum core diameter of the kagome-structured fiber used here allows for 8 MHz full-width half-maximum sub-Doppler features, and its wavelength-insensitive transmission is suitable for high-accuracy frequency measurements. A fiber laser is locked to the (12)C2H2 nu(1); + nu(3) P(13) transition inside kagome fiber, and compared with frequency combs based on both a carbon nanotube fiber laser and a Cr:forsterite laser, each of which are referenced to a GPS-disciplined Rb oscillator.

A phase-stabilized carbon nanotube fiber laser frequency comb.

A frequency comb generated by a 167 MHz repetition frequency erbium-doped fiber ring laser using a carbon nanotube saturable absorber is phase-stabilized for the first time. Measurements of the in-loop phase noise show an integrated phase error on the carrier envelope offset frequency of 0.35 radians.

High-performance, vibration-immune, fiber-laser frequency comb.

We demonstrate an environmentally robust optical frequency comb based on a polarization-maintaining, all-fiber, figure-eight laser. The comb is phase locked to a cavity-stabilized cw laser by use of an intracavity electro-optic phase modulator yielding 1.6 MHz feedback bandwidth.

Ultrashort laser pulse characterization using modified spectrum auto-interferometric correlation (MOSAIC).

Sensitive, real-time chirp and spectral phase diagnostics along with full field reconstruction of femtosecond laser pulses are performed using a single rapid-scan interferometric autocorrelator. Through the use of phase retrieval error maps, ambiguities in pulse retrievals based on the pulse spectrum and various forms of MOSAIC traces are discussed. We show second-order autocorrelations can introduce significantly different amounts of chirp depending on the implementation.

Phase-locked, erbium-fiber-laser-based frequency comb in the near infrared.

A phase-locked frequency comb in the near infrared is demonstrated with a mode-locked, erbium-doped, fiber laser whose output is amplified and spectrally broadened in dispersion-flattened, highly nonlinear optical fiber to span from 1100 to >2200 nm. The supercontinuum output comprises a frequency comb with a spacing set by the laser repetition rate and an offset by the carrier-envelope offset frequency, which is detected with the standard f-to-2f heterodyne technique. The comb spacing and offset frequency are phase locked to a stable rf signal with a fiber stretcher in the laser cavity and by control of the pump laser power, respectively.