Photonic crystal fiber lasers have the potential to revolutionize rare-earth-doped fiber lasers in high-power operation.J. Limpert, A. Liem, T. Schreiber, F. Röser, H. Zellmer and A. Tünnermann, Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena, Institute of Applied PhysicsThe first rare-earth-doped fiber lasers, which produced a few milliwatts at a wavelength of around 1 μm, were operated in the early 1960s. For the next several decades, fiber lasers were little more than a low-power laboratory curiosity. Recently, however, with the advent of reliable, high-brightness, diode-pumped lasers — and of double-clad fibers to facilitate coupling the pump light into the fiber — they are entering the realm of kilowatt powers with diffraction-limited beam quality (Figure 1). Figure 1. 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