High-temperature wave thermalization spoils beam self-cleaning in nonlinear multimode GRIN fibers
Fabio Mangini, Mario Ferraro, Alessandro Tonello, Vincent Couderc, S. Wabnitz
Abstract
In our experiments, we reveal a so-far unnoticed power limitation of beam self-cleaning in graded-index nonlinear multimode optical fibers. As the optical pulse power is progressively increased, we observed that the initial Kerr-induced improvement of the spatial beam quality is eventually lost. Based on a holographic mode decomposition of the output field, we show that beam spoiling is associated with high-temperature wave thermalization, which depletes the fundamental mode in favor of a highly multimode power distribution.
Topics & Concepts
OpticsMulti-mode optical fiberSelf-focusingLaser beam qualityThermalisationBeam (structure)Materials sciencePower (physics)Nonlinear opticsPhysicsOptical fiberLaserLaser beamsThermodynamicsQuantum mechanicsOptical Network TechnologiesAdvanced Fiber Laser TechnologiesPhotonic Crystal and Fiber Optics