Large-Mode-Area All-Solid Photonic Bandgap Fibers for the Mitigation of Optical Nonlinearities

Abstract

There is still significant need for power scaling of fiber lasers. Large-mode-area fibers are a key for the mitigation of optical nonlinearities. In recent years, mode instability has shown itself to be an additional significant limiting factor for single-mode power scaling in the regime of a few hundred watts to kilowatts. It is better appreciated now that further power scaling requires significant high-order-mode suppression in addition to a large effective mode area in a fiber. In recent years, we have shown that all-solid photonic bandgap fibers are a superior approach due to their unsurpassed higher-order-mode suppression in large-mode-area designs, making them well suited for applications at high average powers. We will review of some of the recent progress, challenges, and prospects of all-solid photonic bandgap fibers in this invited paper.