High-order mode direct oscillation of few-mode fiber laser for high-quality cylindrical vector beams

Generation of high-order modes with high quality is important for the application of cylindrical vector beams in fibers. We experimentally demonstrated high-order LP11 mode generation and amplification with a broad bandwidth in an all few-mode fiber laser. A wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) mode selective coupler (MSC) is proposed to achieve efficient mode conversion from LP01 mode to LP11 mode, but also combine high-order LP11 modes at the wavelengths of 980/1550 nm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the high-order mode oscillation in an all few-mode fiber laser. LP11 mode and cylindrical vector beams including radially and azimuthally polarized beams are obtained with high modal purity. The purity of the generated high-order modes are all in excess of 95%. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement