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Optimizing Yb Concentration of Fiber Amplifiers in The Presence of Transverse Modalinstabilities and Photodarkening
Optimizing Yb Concentration of Fiber Amplifiers in The Presence of Transverse Modalinstabilities and Photodarkening
Lægsgaard, Jesper
Published in:
Applied Optics
Publication date:
2016
Document Version
Peer reviewed version
Citation (APA):
Lægsgaard, J. (2016). Optimizing Yb concentration of fiber amplifiers in the presence of transverse modal
instabilities and photodarkening. Applied Optics, 55(8), 1966-1970. https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.55.001966
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Optimizing Yb concentration of fiber amplifiers in the presence
of transverse modal instabilities and photodarkening
Jesper Lægsgaard1
1
DTU Fotonik, Department of Photonics Engineering, Technical University of Denmark,
Ørsteds Plads 343, DK-2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
The Yb concentration of double-clad optical fiber amplifiers is numerically optimized with respect
to maximizing the transverse modal instability threshold in the presence of absorption arising from
photodarkening. The pump cladding area is scaled with the Yb concentration to approximately
maintain the pump absorption in operation. It is found that approximate analytical expressions can
predict the optimized concentration levels found in numerical simulations with sufficient accuracy to
be useful in fiber design.
OCIS codes: (140.3510) Lasers, Fiber; (140.6810) Lasers, Thermal effects; (060.2320) Fiber
optics amplifiers and oscillators; (160.5690) Rare-earth-doped materials.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/XX.99.099999
der modes, P1 (z), P2 (z), is in this model given by While this model is in reasonable, though not per-
dP1 fect, accord with various published data, the magni-
= Γ1 (z)P1 (z) (1) tude of reported PD effects vary widely across the
dz
literature. For this reason, αP D will in this work
dP2
= [Γ2 (z) + χ2 (z, Ω)P1 (z)] P2 (z, Ω) (2) be taken as a variable parameter, whose order of
dz magnitude will be discussed in section 3.
Z rd
g0 (z)
Γi (z) = 2π drRi2 (r) − γP D (r, z)(3) The crucial nonlinear coupling parameter
s (r,z)
0 1 + IIsat (z) χ2 (z, Ω) is given by
Ip (z)(σap σes − σas σep ) − Pτ σas
g0 (z) = NY b (4)
Ip (z)(σap + σep ) + Pτ
Z ∞
ωs Ip (z)(σap + σep ) + Pτ ηωp
Isat (z) = (5) χ2 (z, Ω) = 2π drR1 (r)R2 (r)
ωp σas + σes cκn0 0
Z rd
~ωp Pp (z)
dr′ q(z, r′ )Im g1 (r, r′ , Ω) R1 (r′ )R2 (r′ ) (11)
Is (r, z) = P1 (z)R12 (r); Pτ = ; Ip (z) = (6)
τ Ap 0
ω
Here σas , σap , σes , σep are absorption and emis- g0 (z) ωps − 1
sion cross sections for signal and pump respectively, q(z, r′ ) = 2 + γP D (r, z) (12)
(r ′ ,z)
ωp , ωs are the pump and signal frequencies respec- 1 + IIssat (z)
tively, τ the Yb upper-state lifetime, and Ω the fre-
quency detuning between the signals in the funda-
mental and higher-order mode, typically in the kHz
range. The doping radius of the core is denoted rd , where g1 (r, r′ , Ω) is the m=1 component of the
and a uniform Yb-distribution inside this radius is Greens function that solves the steady-periodic
assumed. In the present work, the core radius is heat transfer problem at the frequency Ω, as given
taken to be equal to rd , but this is not a necessary in [3].
requirement. Ap is the area of the pump core, or
inner cladding. The radial guided-mode profiles Ri The above equations are solved numerically to es-
are normalized so that timate the TMI threshold in a given amplifier lay-
Z ∞ out. The threshold is determined by requiring that
2π drRi2 (r) = 1. (7) the total HOM power, integrated over the Ω range
0 where χ2 is appreciable, is below 10 per cent of the
Assuming backward pumping, the pump power FM power when seeding the HOM with quantum
Pp (z) obeys the evolution equation noise (one photon per frequency bin). The thresh-
old power is only weakly dependent on the exact
dPp 2πNY b rd
Z
= dr [σap − n2 (r, z)(σap + σep )] choice of this criterion. As discussed in other works,
dz Ap 0 the threshold is reduced if the HOM is seeded by
(8) amplitude noise [6], but this is of little consequence
with n2 (r, z) given by for the NY b optimization which is the central pur-
g0 (z) σas pose of this paper.
n2 (r, z) = +
NY b (σas + σes ) 1 + Is (r,z) σas + σes To obtain an analytical estimate for the optimal
Isat (z)
NY b , the following approximations are made: i)
(9)
The transverse variation of the guided mode pro-
In writing Eq. (1) it has been assumed that P2 <<
file is neglected, so the signal intensity becomes
P1 holds everywhere, so that the depletion of P1
Is (r, z)=Is (z)= PA
1 O1
, where O1 is the overlap in-
by the coupling term in Eq. (2) can be neglected. d
By the same assumption, the signal intensity Is is tegral of the FM with the doped area Ad . ii)
calculated from P1 only. Pτ ≈0 is used to simplify Eqs. (4), writing g0 ≈
The absorption from photodarkening (PD) is de- NY b (σap σes −σas σep )/(σap +σep ). iii) The saturated
scribed by γP D , whose asymptotic value in long- gain, gs = g0 /(1 + P1 /Psat ) is approximated to be
term use of the amplifier at a specific inversion level constant along the amplifier, with Psat = Isat Ad
O1 .
is assumed to be
Under these assumptions, one finds for n2 and the
γP D (r, z) = αP D NY2 b n2 (r, z) (10) total gain for the HOM going through the amplifier,
3
10 10
3rd-degree polynomial 3rd-degree polynomial
9 square-root expression 9 square-root expression
Yb concentration (10 µm )
-3
Simulations (10W seed) Simulations (10W seed)
Yb concentration (µm )
-3
8 Simulations (40W seed) 8 Simulations (40W seed)
7
7 7
6 6
5 5
4 4
3 3
5 10 15 20 1000 1020 1040 1060 1080 1100
Pump absorption (dB/m) Signal wavelength (nm)
10 700
αp=20 dB
-3
7
-15 6
αPD=10 µm dB/m
Pth (W)
500
6
5
400
4
λs=1080 nm
3 300
2
5 10 0.5 1 1.5 2
-16 6
α (10 µm dB/m) NYb/Nopt
Fig. 1. Optimal NY b -values as function of αp (top left), signal wavelength λs (top right), and αP D (bottom left).
The variation of the TMI threshold Pth with deviation from the optimal Yb concentration Nopt is illustrated in the
bottom right panel for four specific cases.
2 · 10−15 µm6 dB/m was recently proposed[7], based power, which does not enter into Eqs. (18), (19),
on earlier experimental work [12, 14]. On the other is relatively small. Thus, the calculations confirm
hand, Mattsson reported PD loss measurements that the proposed equations are useful for estimat-
suggesting an αP D < 10−16 µm6 dB/m for a uni- ing optimal Yb concentrations.
form core doping [15]. Other authors have pub-
lished PD loss measurements in between these ex- In figure 2, the threshold powers obtained at the
tremes [16, 17]. For the calculations in the present optimal values of NY b are shown for the various
work an αP D range of 10−15 − 10−16 µm6 dB/m is cases. It is important to stress that all thresholds
therefore considered. plotted are for the optimal value of NY b as shown
in Fig. 1, and with the pump cladding area Ap
In figure 1, the results of Eqs. (18), (19) are com- scaled according to Eq. (16). Therefore the fig-
pared to optimal Yb concentrations derived from ures cannot be interpreted as showing the effect of
the numerical simulations, when varying individual varying only a single parameter, such as the signal
parameters as discussed above. Clearly, Eq. (18) wavelength. Clearly, a variation of αp , i.e. the re-
is only accurate to typically within 10-30%, with lation between NY b and pump cladding area, has
some deviations exceeding 50 %. However, as illus- relatively small influence on both the optimal NY b
trated by the final plot of selected TMI thresholds value, and the resulting threshold. On the other
versus the deviation of NY b from its optimum value hand, there is a considerable variation with λs , with
Nopt , these inaccuracies are of minor consequence a value around the pump absorption maximum at
for the resulting threshold. For instance, a 30% de- 1030 nm or even lower being optimal. In addition,
viation from the optimum NY b typically leads to as expected, minimization of αP D is crucial for im-
a ∼5% deviation in TMI threshold. It may also proving the TMI threshold. Also shown in Fig. 2
be noted that the dependence of Nopt on the seed is a scatter plot displaying all calculated threshold
5
900
700
750
Pth (W)
Pth (W)
600
700
500
400
650
300
600 200
6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 1020 1040 1060 1080 1100
αp (dB) λs (nm)
1000
0.9
Pth / Pmax
Pth (W)
0.8
0.7
500
0 2e-16 4e-16 6e-16 8e-16 1e-15 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 1.25 1.5 1.75 2 2.25
6
αPD (µm dB/m) NYb / Nopt
Fig. 2. Threshold power as function of αp (top left), signal wavelength λs (top right), and αP D (bottom left). A
scatter plot of threshold power relative to its maximum as a function of NY b relative to its optimum is shown in the
bottom right panel.
analytical model.
1.2
References
[1] T. Eidam, C. Wirth, C. Jauregui, F. Stutzki,
1.1 F. Jansen, H.-J. Otto, O. Schmidt, T. Schreiber,
αest / αPD
αPD=10
-16 6
µm dB/m J. Limpert, and A. Tünnermann, “Experimental
1 -15 6 observations of the threshold-like onset of mode in-
αPD=10 µm dB/m
λs=1100 nm stabilities in high power fiber amplifiers,” Opt. Ex-
0.9 αPD=20 dB press 19, 13218–13224 (2011).
[2] A. V. Smith and J. J. Smith, “Mode instability
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J. Lægsgaard, “Thermally induced mode coupling
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