Theory and modeling of photodarkening-induced quasi static degradation in fiber amplifiers

Progress and Summary of Photodarkening in Rare Earth Doped Fiber

In this paper, we summarize the research on photodarkening in optical fibers. The causes of photodarkening in fiber, the influence of photodarkening on fiber laser, the experimental device of photodarkening, and the mathematical model used to study the phenomenon of photodarkening are described in detail. At the end of the paper, we summarize the means and methods to suppress photodarkening.

Experimental investigation of quasi-static mode degradation in a high power large mode area fiber amplifier

In this work, quasi-static mode degradation in high power fiber amplifiers has been investigated experimentally. An increase of M² from 1.3 to 2.6 with distortion of the beam profile is observed, which results in the signal spectra and backward light characterization departing from the traditional phenomena. The amplifier has been operated at the same input pump power of 705 W for nearly 2.2 hours to investigate the relationship between quasi-static mode degradation and photodarkening. The evolution of M² factor/beam profile, mode correlation coefficient and output laser power at different working times indicate that the quasi-static mode degradation in the high power fiber amplifiers is dependent on photodarkening and evolves on the scale of tens of minutes. A visible green light has been injected to photobleach the gain fiber for 19 hours, which reveals that the quasi-static mode degradation has been suppressed simultaneously. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first detail report of photodarkening-induced quasi-static degradation in high power fiber amplifiers.

Thermal bleaching of photodarkening and heat-induced loss and spectral broadening in Tm3+-doped fibers

We demonstrate the thermal bleaching effect on a photodarkened thulium-doped fiber (TDF) in detail. The bleaching effect on visible transmission initiates at 250 °C and a complete recovery is achieved at 550 °C. Prior to the recovery, a post-irradiation heat-induced spectral loss is observed. It indicates that an intermediate energy state is generated in the TDF under exposure to near-infrared (NIR) radiation, exhibiting the spectral attenuation in visible (VIS) and NIR region as driven by color center after thermal activation. And, with thermal treatment, the bleached TDF shows a partial photodarkening (PD) resistance when it is subject to photoirradiation again. In addition, the temperature-dependent spectral broadening and red shift that may distort the measured decay curve of excess loss is observed and discussed.

Bleaching of photodarkening in Tm-doped silica fiber with deuterium loading

We demonstrate the rapid photodarkening (PD) phenomenon in Tm-doped fiber (TDF) core pumped by a laser at 1080 nm and the bleaching effect of deuterium (${{\rm D}_2}$D₂) on PD TDF. By ${{\rm D}_2}$D₂ loading for seven days, the PD-induced excess loss (PIEL) in the visible (VIS) and near-infrared (NIR) region have been largely eliminated, and no degradation was observed within 30 days. PD resistance of the ${{\rm D}_2}$D₂ pretreated TDF has been investigated as well. The formation of color centers based on defects and precursors in the silica matrix and the mechanism of ${{\rm D}_2}$D₂ bleaching are discussed.

Ultra-low intensity noise, all fiber 365 W linearly polarized single frequency laser at 1064 nm

We demonstrate a robust linearly polarized 365 W, very low amplitude noise, single frequency master oscillator power amplifier at 1064 nm. Power scaling was done through a custom large mode area fiber with a mode field diameter of 30 µm. No evidence of stimulated Brillouin scattering or modal instabilities are observed. The relative intensity noise is reduced down to -160 dBc/Hz between 2 kHz and 10 kHz via a wide band servo loop (1 MHz bandwidth). We achieve 350 W of isolated power, with a power stability < 0.7% RMS over 1100 hours of continuous operation and a near diffraction limited beam (M² < 1.1).

Thermal analysis of Yb-doped high-power fiber amplifiers with Al:P co-doped cores

It has been recently shown that photodarkening can significantly reduce the mode instability threshold in high power Yb-doped fiber amplifiers, thus resulting in an even more severe limitation to the scaling of the output average power of these systems. Therefore, an efficient reduction of photodarkening in an Yb-doped active fiber will lead to very significant gains in the output average power delivered by such systems. In this context, it has been reported that photodarkening can be significantly mitigated when co-doping a fiber core with Al and P, which makes this approach potentially appealing to increase the TMI threshold. Unfortunately co-doping the fiber core with Al and P also alters the effective cross-sections of the fiber, which has repercussion in the amplification efficiency. Thus, a fiber with a higher P concentration will exhibit lower cross-sections, therefore requiring a higher Yb-ion concentration to reach a certain desired amplification efficiency. However, increasing the Yb-ion concentration leads to higher photodarkening losses, which might potentially counteract the benefits of using P co-doping. In this paper we present a comparative analysis of the expected performance of different fiber amplifiers for a given constant average heat-load and amplification efficiency as a function of the ratio of Al:P concentration in the fiber core. This study indicates which core compositions are more beneficial for increasing the mode instability threshold in Yb-doped high-power fiber amplifier systems.

Mode instability dynamics in high-power low-numerical-aperture step-index fiber amplifier

The study on mode instability (MI) in the large-mode-area fiber is generating great interest regarding the high-power applications of fiber lasers. To the best of our knowledge, we have investigated for the first time the dynamics of the output beam from a kilowatt-level all-fiber amplifier based on the low-numerical-aperture (<0.04) step-index (SI) fiber before and after the onset of the MI, including the temporal dynamics and mode evolution. The temporal power fluctuations indicate three evolution stages apart from the onset threshold of the MI, defined as stable, transition, and chaotic regions. In addition, the mode decomposition technique is utilized to accurately observe and investigate the mode evolution and relevant modal content corresponding to the transition and chaotic regions in the SI fiber laser for the first time. According to the mode decomposition results, the reduction of the extracted power can be explained by the high bending loss of the high-order mode excited in the MI process. Finally, the difference of MI dynamics between the fiber lasers based on the SI fiber and rod-type photonic crystal fiber is discussed.

Mitigating transverse mode instability in all-fiber laser oscillator and scaling power up to 2.5 kW employing bidirectional-pump scheme

Transverse mode instability (TMI) is one of the main limiting factors in kW-level fiber lasers. Unlike fiber amplifiers, TMI in fiber laser oscillators attracts less attention from researchers. In this work, we construct an all-fiber ytterbium-doped laser oscillator and investigate the performance in co-pumping and bidirectional-pumping configurations, respectively. In the co-pumping scheme, TMI occurs at ~1.6kW and restricts further output power scaling. Different from the characteristic of dynamic TMI in fiber amplifiers, quasi-static TMI is observed in the laser oscillator. Details of the temporal characteristic around the TMI threshold are provided. In the bidirectional-pumping scheme, experimental results validate that the TMI is mitigated notably by employing bidirectional-pumping instead of co-pumping. The output laser power is further scaled to 2.5kW with a slope efficiency of 74.5% and good beam quality (M²~1.3). At the maximum power, the FWHM bandwidth of optical spectra is 5.2nm, and the Raman stokes light is ~20dB below the signal.

Precompensation of the thermal-induced refractive index changes into a fully aperiodic LPF for heat load resilience

In this paper, a strategy consisting of precompensating the thermal-induced transverse refractive index changes is undertaken to push further the appearance threshold of a multimode regime. First, a standard air-silica large pitch fiber (LPF) and a fully aperiodic large pitch fiber are confronted in regard to their heat load resilience and capabilities for single-mode emission. Thereafter, slight refractive index depressions are judiciously introduced into the active core area. This approach enhances the delocalization of the high-order modes even under severe heat load levels. This combination of aperiodic cladding microstructuration and index-precompensation theoretically increases the multimode regime threshold while preserving large mode field areas. This investigation is performed at 1.03 and 2 μm operating wavelengths.