Ofs Fitel, LLC

Fitel USA Corporation

Furukawa Electric North America, Inc.

Ofs Fitel Llc, a Delaware Limited Liability Company

Marc Mermelstein

David John DiGiovanni

Siddharth Ramachandran

Andrew Douglas Yablon

Clifford E Headley

Michael Fishteyn

Samir Ghalmi

David J Digiovanni

An HOM-based optical fiber amplifier is selectively doped within its core region to minimize the presence of dopants in those portions of the core where the unwanted lower-order modes (particularly, the fundamental mode) of the signal reside. The reduction (elimination) of the gain medium from these portions of the core minimizes (perhaps to the point of elimination) limits the amount of amplification impressed upon the backward-propagating Stokes wave. This minimization of amplification will, in turn, lead to a reduction in the growth of the Stokes power that is generated by the Brillouin gain, which results in increasing the amount of power present in the desired, forward-propagating HOM amplified optical signal output.

Suppression of stimulated Brillouin scattering in higher-order-mode optical fiber amplifiers

The present disclosure is directed to removing unabsorbed cladding light in high-power optical systems. Some embodiments comprise a glass block with a refractive index that is greater than a refractive index of a fiber cladding, and a metal housing that is located external to the glass block. The glass block and the metal housing, in combination, removes excess light.

Removing unwanted light from high-power optical systems

Suppression of stimulated brillouin scattering in higher-order-mode optical fiber amplifiers

Embodiments of the present invention are generally related to a high-power liquid-cooled pump and signal combiner and methods thereof for fiber optic applications. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to a pump and signal combiner capable of conveying several kilowatts of pump laser power for kilowatt class rare-earth doped fiber amplifiers without suffering thermal damage. In one embodiment of the present invention, a high-power, heat dissipating optical fiber device comprises a section of optical fiber configured to propagate light, a cooling chamber, substantially encapsulating the optical fiber, and a fluid within the cooling chamber having a refractive index selected to control the interaction and propagation of the light in the fluid.

High-power liquid-cooled pump and signal combiner

The present disclosure provides an approach to more efficiently amplify signals by matching either the gain materials or the pump profile with the signal profile for a higher-order mode (HOM) signal. By doing so, more efficient energy extraction is achieved.

Segmented gain-doping of an optical fiber

A large mode area fiber amplifier suitable for high power applications includes a core region specifically configured to allow for high power operation while also limiting the amount of SBS that is generated. The composition of the core region is selected to include a dopant (such as aluminum) in selected areas to reduce the acoustic refractive index of the core and limit the spatial overlap between the acoustic and optical fields. The acoustic refractive index is also structured so that the acoustic field is refracted away from the central core area. In one embodiment, the core may comprise a depressed index center portion and surrounding ring core area, with the center portion including the aluminum doping and the ring formed to have a diameter less that the phonon decay length for the operating wavelength(s).

Large mode area fiber amplifiers with reduced stimulated brillouin scattering

A fiber amplifier suitable for high power, narrow linewidth applications exhibits suppression of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) by segmenting the fiber amplifier into separate portions that exhibit different Brillouin center frequencies. By changing the center frequencies in adjoining segments of the fiber amplifier, the backward-propagating Stokes signal is essentially blocked, and SBS is suppressed. In a preferred embodiment the segmentation is added to the terminating portion of the fiber amplifier. Various techniques, including temperature modifications, can be used to impart the desired center frequency shift.

Suppression of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in high power fiber amplifiers

An arrangement for reducing the effects of pump signal relative intensity noise (RIN) in a Raman fiber amplifier. A portion of the output from a pump laser source is applied as an input to a compensating, lower power laser module, where fluctuations in the output power of the pump laser are used to control the bias current applied as an input to the compensating laser such that as the pump power increases, the bias current (and lower power laser output) decreases; conversely, as the pump power decreases, the bias current applied as an input to the compensating laser will be increased. The result is a relatively flat gain as seen by the information signal, thus minimizing the transfer of relative intensity noise from the pump to the signal.

Relative intensity noise (RIN) reduction in fiber-based raman amplifier systems

The specification describes a distributed Raman amplifier with multiple pump sources for wide band amplification of wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) signals. It was recognized that using multiple pump sources introduces non-linear effects, such as four wave mixing (FWM). These effects are reduced by multiplexing the pump wavelengths in the multiple pump source. It was also recognized that not all of the pump wavelengths over the wavelength spectrum of the pumps contributes to FWM. Thus fewer than all of the pump wavelengths require multiplexing to eliminate FWM in the multiple wavelength pump source. Various approaches are described to ensure that the pump wavelengths do not interact in FWM in the transmission span. The selected individual pump wavelengths may be either time division multiplexed, or frequency modulated.

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Highland Park, NJ, United States of America

Marc Mermelstein