Photonic crystal fiber technology for monolithic single-mode large mode area all-solid amplifier

In this work, an all-solid Ytterbium doped double-clad single-mode (SM) large-mode-area (LMA) photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is characterized in a monolithic amplifier setup. The characterized all-solid PCF combines the SM operation of LMA PCFs while maintaining simple splicing of all-solid fibers. The fiber has been tested in a pulsed monolithic forward pumped amplifier system achieving excellent modal properties. The fiber is polarization maintaining and has a mode field diameter of approximately 24 μm. At optimal fiber length the output signal power of the amplifier was measured to 43 W limited by pump power with an optical to optical efficiency of 61 %. Polarization extinction ratios (PER) above 18 dB was observed for all fiber lengths. Simple splicing with splice losses < 0.2 dB and maintained polarization are reported using a standard Fujikura fusion splicer.