Nonlinearity mitigated gain fiber development for kW-class fiber lasers

There is high demand for low-nonlinearity rare-earth-doped fibers that can be used to develop kW-class high-energy narrow-linewidth lasers for many DOD applications. NP Photonics proposes to design and fabricate specialty optical fibers with significantly reduced nonlinearity compared to current commercial fibers. In the Phase I program, the feasibility was demonstrated of fabricating the specialty optical fibers with mitigated stimulated Brillouin scattering, transverse mode instability, and significantly increased power scalability. Nonlinearity mitigated gain fibers meeting or exceeding the requirements of the Navy’s applications will be fabricated and characterized in Phase II and delivered to DoD’s laboratories for testing by the end of the program.