Article Abstracts | September 2006
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Robust Light Propagated in Ultralarge-Mode-Area Fibers
High-order modes may be the key to even higher powers from diffraction-limited fiber lasers.
by Siddharth Ramachandran, Samir Ghalmi and Man F. Yan, OFS Laboratories
In the past few years, ytterbium-doped fiber lasers have achieved diffraction-limited outputs at multiple kilowatt levels, and they now compete with or surpass their more complex counterparts: bulk, solid-state lasers. An all-fiber approach offers two key advantages over bulk lasers — long interaction lengths and the prospect of building robust reliable systems by splicing disparate components, obviating the need for free-space alignment and optics.
The long interaction length enables distributed thermal management as well as high single-pass gain, thus offering the possibility of higher power levels than those achieved by solid-state lasers.
1 In addition, fibers offer the possibility of dispersive design, which would be beneficial for ultrashort-pulse (pico- to femtosecond) systems...
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