Peak-power limits on fiber amplifiers imposed by self-focusing

Abstract

We have numerically investigated the behavior of the fundamental mode of a step-index, multimode (MM) fiber as the optical power approaches the self-focusing limit $\left(P_{\mathrm{crit}}\right)$. The analysis includes the effects of gain and bending (applicable to coiled fiber amplifiers). We find power-dependent, stationary solutions that propagate essentially without change at beam powers approaching $P_{\mathrm{crit}}$ in straight and bent fibers. We show that in a MM fiber amplifier seeded with its fundamental eigenmode at powers $\ll P_{\mathrm{crit}}$, the transverse spatial profile adiabatically evolves through a continuum of stationary solutions as the beam is amplified toward $P_{\mathrm{crit}}$.

© 2006 Optical Society of America

High-energy and high-peak-power nanosecond pulse generation with beam quality control in 200-µm core highly multimode Yb-doped fiber amplifiers

Ming-Yuan Cheng, Yu-Chung Chang, Almantas Galvanauskas, Pri Mamidipudi, Rupak Changkakoti, and Peter Gatchell
Opt. Lett. 30(4) 358-360 (2005)

Analysis of the scalability of diffraction-limited fiber lasers and amplifiers to high average power

Jay W. Dawson, Michael J. Messerly, Raymond J. Beach, Miroslav Y. Shverdin, Eddy A. Stappaerts, Arun K. Sridharan, Paul H. Pax, John E. Heebner, Craig W. Siders, and C.P.J. Barty
Opt. Express 16(17) 13240-13266 (2008)

Single-mode operation of a coiled multimode fiber amplifier

Jeffrey P. Koplow, Dahv A. V. Kliner, and Lew Goldberg
Opt. Lett. 25(7) 442-444 (2000)

Thermally induced mode distortion and its limit to power scaling of fiber lasers

Wei-Wei Ke, Xiao-Jun Wang, Xian-Feng Bao, and Xiao-Jian Shu
Opt. Express 21(12) 14272-14281 (2013)

Axicons for mode conversion in high peak power, higher-order mode, fiber amplifiers

J.W. Nicholson, A. DeSantolo, P.S. Westbrook, R.S. Windeler, T. Kremp, C. Headley, and D.J. DiGiovanni
Opt. Express 23(26) 33849-33860 (2015)