Long-period gratings for the optimization of cladding-pumped microstructured optical fiber laser

The design of a laser constituted by an ytterbium doped, double-cladding microstructured optical fiber (DCMOF) with an optimized optical coupler inscribed in the doped core region is illustrated. The coupler is constituted by a long-period grating (LPG) which increases the pump power transfer from the inner cladding modes towards the fundamental core mode. A home-made numerical code solving the coupled-mode equations and the rate equations is ad hoc developed to investigate the dependence of the fiber laser performance on the LPG parameters such as the grating period and the length. The simulations highlight that it is possible to transfer a lot of the total input pump power from the inner cladding modes towards the fundamental mode guided into the core, leading to a significant improvement of both the pump power absorption and the output signal power. Moreover, a reduction of the total length of the laser and a minimization of the length-dependent nonlinear effects can be obtained.