Fabrication and laser performance of Yb3+/Al3+ co-doped photonic crystal fiber synthesized by plasma nonchemical vapor deposition method

•We report a new fabrication method of Yb3+-doped photonic crystal fiber.•Plasma nonchemical vapor deposition method (NCVD) is used.•NCVD method can overcome the limitations of MCVD method.•Yb3+-doped fiber fabricated with NCVD is suited to fiber laser applications.

In this paper, the bulk Yb3+/Al3+ co-doped silica glass with 1.3 Yb2O3–2.5Al2O3–96.2SiO2 (wt%) are synthesized by plasma nonchemical vapor deposition method combining solution doping technology, where the inductively coupled plasma is used as the heat source. The influence of different O2/N2 ratios on the fluorescence properties of Yb3+/Al3+ co-doped silica glass are investigated. The large mode area photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is fabricated by using the bulk Yb3+/Al3+ co-doped silica glass as fiber core. The laser performance of Yb3+/Al3+ co-doped photonic crystal fiber is studied.