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US 5,708,669 AGranted
Article comprising a cladding-pumped optical fiber laser
AssigneeLucent Technologies Inc.
InventorsDavid John DiGiovanni, Ashish Madhukar Vengsarkar
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AssigneeLucent Technologies Inc.
InventorsDavid John DiGiovanni, Ashish Madhukar Vengsarkar
Estimating the term…
A cladding pumped optical fiber laser comprises a length of optical fiber having a rare earth-doped region of diameter d.sub.RE >d.sub.01 where d.sub.01 is the mode diameter of the LP.sub.01 mode of the fiber at the laser radiation at wavelength .lambda.. In one embodiment the fiber has a core diameter d.sub.c selected such that the LP.sub.01 mode is the only guided spatial mode of the fiber, and d.sub.RE is greater than d.sub.c. In another embodiment the fiber supports at least one higher order guided spatial mode, typically LP.sub.11 or LP.sub.02, and d.sub.RE is approximately equal to or larger than d.sub.c. Currently preferred embodiments comprise a grating-defined laser cavity that comprises a mode-coupling refractive index grating. Cladding pumped lasers according to the invention will typically have efficient conversion of pump radiation to laser radiation, and consequently can typically be shorter than analogous prior art cladding pumped lasers.
An article comprising a first cladding pumped fiber laser comprising a length of optical fiber having an essentially circularly symmetric core of relatively large refractive index contactingly surrounded by a cladding of relatively low refractive index, said core having a diameter d.sub.c selected such that said optical fiber supports a fundamental guided spatial mode LP.sub.01 of laser radiation of wavelength .lambda., said LP.sub.01 mode having an effective mode diameter d.sub.01, said core comprising a rare earth dopant selected to emit said laser radiation in said optical fiber;
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.