Analysis of fabrication techniques and material systems for kW fibers limited by TMI

Nicoletta Haarlammert; Stefan Kuhn; Christian Hupel; Johannes Nold; Steffen Schulze; Friedrich Möller; Victor Distler; Maximilian Strecker; Gonzalo Palma-Vega; Sigrun Hein; Denny Häßner; Till Walbaum; Thomas Schreiber; Ramona Eberhardt; Andreas Tünnermann

doi:10.1117/12.2546714

21 February 2020 Analysis of fabrication techniques and material systems for kW fibers limited by TMI

Nicoletta Haarlammert, Stefan Kuhn, Christian Hupel, Johannes Nold, Steffen Schulze, Friedrich Möller, Victor Distler, Maximilian Strecker, Gonzalo Palma-Vega, Sigrun Hein, Denny Häßner, Till Walbaum, Thomas Schreiber, Ramona Eberhardt, Andreas Tünnermann

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 11260, Fiber Lasers XVII: Technology and Systems; 1126026 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2546714
Event: SPIE LASE, 2020, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Nonlinear effects and transverse mode instabilities (TMI) limit power scaling of single-mode fiber lasers. To overcome these limitations not only the fiber design but also laser relevant properties of the actively doped material itself need to be optimized. By being able to fabricate Yb-doped fibers for high power applications in-house, we have direct access to laser relevant material parameters.We fabricated fibers using three different co-doping systems, namely Yb:Al:P, Yb:Al:F, and Yb:Al:F:Ce. Afterwards we characterized and compared their laser relevant properties. All three co-doping systems showed nearly identical background losses and absorption cross-sections. In contrast, we found that the PD losses and the factor between PD losses @633nm and the laser wavelength range (1μm) to be significantly different. The retrieved characterization results were implemented into our simulations tool in order to improve the reliability of predictions. Finally, we characterized the fibers in kW-amplifier setups according to their power scaling limits, especially the TMI threshold. This cycle of fiber fabrication, characterization, and simulation enabled us to identify the impact of individual fiber parameters on the TMI threshold. We demonstrated that the impact of PD loss leads to a reductions of the TMI threshold for Yb:Al:F co-doping system of 13% to 23% (depending on the Yb-concentration). The PD loss for the two other systems was proved to be significantly lower and was found to have no impact on the TMI threshold. We experimentally proved that your in-house Yb:Al:P and Yb:Al:F:Ce fibers performed like PD-free fibers.

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Nicoletta Haarlammert, Stefan Kuhn, Christian Hupel, Johannes Nold, Steffen Schulze, Friedrich Möller, Victor Distler, Maximilian Strecker, Gonzalo Palma-Vega, Sigrun Hein, Denny Häßner, Till Walbaum, Thomas Schreiber, Ramona Eberhardt, and Andreas Tünnermann "Analysis of fabrication techniques and material systems for kW fibers limited by TMI", Proc. SPIE 11260, Fiber Lasers XVII: Technology and Systems, 1126026 (21 February 2020); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2546714

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