Al/Ge co-doped large mode area fiber with high SBS threshold

We propose a novel approach of making large effective area laser fiber with higher threshold for the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) using Al/Ge co-doping in the fiber core. The increased SBS threshold is achieved by reducing the acoustic-optic overlap integral while keeping the optical refractive index profile with a step structure. The manipulation of the overlap integral is done by adjusting the relative doping level between Al2O3 and GeO2 in the core. The mechanism is validated by detailed examples of numerical modeling. An Yb-doped double clad fiber with the core co-doped with Al2O3 and GeO2 was fabricated by the OVD process. Measured acoustic velocity profile using a scanning acoustic microscope verified that the acoustic velocity in the fiber core changes with the design. An amplifier utilizing the fiber demonstrated that the proposed fiber yielded 6 dB higher SBS threshold than a fiber without using the co-doping scheme. (C) 2007 Optical Society of America