High-order modes suppression in large mode area active fibers by controlling the radial distribution of the rare earth dopant

Many high power fiber laser applications require doped fibers having large mode area but still working in the single mode regime. The most common techniques to keep a large mode area fiber in the single mode regime are to reduce the core numerical aperture, to strip the high order modes by coiling the fiber, to launch only a single transverse mode, or to use photonic crystal fibers. All these methods have limits and disadvantages. In this paper we demonstrate by simulation the effectiveness of another method to suppress the high order modes in large mode area active fibers by optimizing the rare earth dopant concentration across the core while keeping the step index structure of the core of the fiber. This method was not previously employed because the traditional doped fiber manufacturing technologies do not have the required capability to radially control the dopant concentration. However, Direct Nanoparticle Deposition (DND) can be used to manufacture large mode area fibers having any radial distribution of active element concentration and any refractive index profile. Thus, DND fibers can be designed to benefit from this high order mode suppression technique. The simulation results presented in this paper have been obtained using Liekki Application Designer v3.1, a software simulator for fiber lasers and amplifiers.