Photonics (Oct 2021)

Spatial Beam Self-Cleaning in Bi-Tapered Multimode Fibers

  • Xiao-Jun Lin,
  • Yu-Xin Gao,
  • Jin-Gan Long,
  • Jia-Wen Wu,
  • Xiang-Yue Li,
  • Wei-Yi Hong,
  • Hu Cui,
  • Zhi-Chao Luo,
  • Wen-Cheng Xu,
  • Ai-Ping Luo

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics8110479
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 11
p. 479

Abstract

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We report the spatial beam self-cleaning in bi-tapered conventional multimode fibers (MMFs) with different tapered lengths. Through the introduction of the bi-tapered structure in MMFs, the input beam with poor beam quality from a high-power fiber laser can be converted to a centered, bell-shaped beam in a short length, due to the strengthened nonlinear modes coupling. It is found that the bi-tapered MMF with longer tapered length at the same waist diameter shows better beam self-cleaning effect and larger spectral broadening. The obtained results offer a new method to improve the beam quality of high-power laser at low cost. Furthermore, it may be interesting for manufacturing bi-tapered MMF-based devices to obtain the quasi-fundamental mode beam in spatiotemporal mode-locked fiber lasers.

Keywords