Large diameter optical waveguide, grating, and laser

Abstract

A large diameter optical waveguide, grating, and laser includes a waveguidehaving at least one coresurrounded by a claddingthe core propagating light in substantially a few transverse spatial modes; and having an outer waveguide dimension dof said waveguide being greater than about 0.3 mm. At least one Bragg gratingmay be impressed in the waveguideThe waveguidemay be axially compressed which causes the length L of the waveguideto decrease without buckling. The waveguidemay be used for any application where a waveguide needs to be compression tuned, e.g., compression-tuned fiber gratings and lasers or other applications. Also, the waveguideexhibits lower mode coupling from the coreto the claddingand allows for higher optical power to be used when writing gratingswithout damaging the waveguideThe shape of the waveguidemay have other geometries (e.g., a 'dogbone' shape) and/or more than one grating or pair of gratings may be used and more than one core may be used. The core and/or claddingmay be doped with a rare-earth dopant and/or may be photosensitive. At least a portion of the coremay be doped between a pair of gratingsto form a fiber laser or the gratingor may be constructed as a tunable DFB fiber laser or an interactive fiber laser within the waveguideThe waveguide may resemble a short 'block' or a longer “cane” type, depending on the application and dimensions used.