An X-junction side coupler is formed by the attachment of a clad stripped special pump fiber to a section of the cladding pumped fiber with its outer cladding removed. The special formulated core of the pump fiber has a lower refractive index than the inner cladding of the cladding pumped fiber, and the resulting composite structure forms an anti-guide for the pump light. Due to the differential refractive index at the interface of the two guides leaky modes are generated to strip away the pump light efficiently and irreversibly from the pump guide to the cladding pumped fiber. An appropriate coupling length will ensure pump light injected in one end will not interfere with the source at the opposite end thus allowing bi-directional pumping in each coupling site. This new device invention facilitates the implementation of distributed pump architecture for cladding pumped fiber devices enabling very high power scaling with good thermal management control.

A 3-dimensional (3-D) inscripted wavelength division multiplexer (WDM) coupler for optical amplifiers is provided. The 3-D WDM coupler includes a substrate. The 3-D WDM coupler further includes a 3-dimensional pump waveguide direct laser inscripted into the substrate. The 3-D WDM coupler also includes a optical pump laser coupled into the 3-dimensional pump waveguide. The 3-D WDM coupler further includes a multicore fiber coupled into cores in the direct laser inscripted substrate.

An optical communication substrate includes a plurality of cores to communicate optical signals; a rectangular input delivering a pump laser, and a shaped portion to combine the optical signals and the pump laser into a ring geometry at an output.

An unrepeatered transmission system includes a receiver coupled to a receive span; a transmitter coupled to the receive span; and a plurality of cascaded amplifiers in the receive span with dedicated fiber cores to supply one or more optical pumps from the receiver to each amplifier, wherein the plurality of cascaded amplifiers increase system reach by increasing the length of a back span in an unrepeatered link.

In an optical fiber device having a configuration in which an optical fiber is joined to a side surface of another optical fiber, a joint portion is suppressed from reaching a high temperature. The optical fiber device includes a first fluoride fiber, a second fluoride fiber, and a heat dissipation member. The first fluoride fiber guides light. The second fluoride fiber has a first end on or from which light is incident or output and a second end at which an end surface of the second fluoride fiber is obliquely joined to a side surface of the first fluoride fiber.

A method of manufacturing a high-power fiber laser by forming a first assembly of fiber optic components on a common first fiber; forming a second assembly of other fiber optic components on a common second fiber; forming a further fiber optic component on a third optical fiber; connecting the first fiber to the third optical fiber by a first splice to fix the first assembly of fiber optic components to the further fiber optic component; and connecting the third optical fiber to the second fiber by a second splice to fix the second assembly of fiber optic components to the further fiber optic component.

A modular, compact and widely tunable laser system for the efficient generation of high peak and high average power ultrashort pulses. Peak power handling capability of fiber amplifiers is expanded by using optimized pulse shapes, as well as dispersively broadened pulses. Dispersive pulse stretching in the presence of self-phase modulation and gain results in the formation of high-power parabolic pulses. To ensure a wide tunability of the whole system, Raman-shifting of the compact sources of ultrashort pulses in conjunction with frequency-conversion in nonlinear optical crystals can be implemented, or an Anti-Stokes fiber in conjunction with fiber amplifiers and Raman-shifters are used. Positive dispersion optical amplifiers are used to improve transmission characteristics. An optical communication system utilizes a Raman amplifier fiber pumped by a train of Raman-shifted, wavelength-tunable pump pulses, to thereby amplify an optical signal which counterpropagates within the Raman amplifier fiber with respect to the pump pulses.

A structural coupling for use within a laser system. In a preferred embodiment, a laser system for cleaning purposes would be displaced within a facility having dangerous conditions which could potentially damage the components of the laser, such as within a nuclear power facility. Protecting the laser components typically requires shielding which can fail, resulting in potential contamination of laser generator and components. The structural coupling would allow the laser to pass through a structural element to be used on the interior of the facility such that the end effector may be freely used within the facility while the mobile laser unit itself is safely stored outside of the dangerous area. The coupling allows the laser to pass through the structural element or opening to the end effector without exposing the laser itself to potential contamination.

The invention describes classes of robust fiber laser systems usable as pulse sources for Nd: or Yb: based regenerative amplifiers intended for industrial settings. The invention modifies adapts and incorporates several recent advances in FCPA systems to use as the input source for this new class of regenerative amplifier.

A high power fiber laser system includes a booster winch is configured as a fiber amplifier extending over free space, pump source and laser head including a reflective element which receives pump light and reflects toward the output end of the booster in a counter signal-propagating direction. The booster is configured with concentric and coextending frustoconically shaped (MM) core and cladding around the core. The core includes a mode transition region expanding between small diameter SM input and large diameter MM output core ends and configured so that amplification of high order modes is substantially suppressed as a single mode (SM) signal light propagates from the input to output core ends. The laser head receives output ends of respective pump light delivery fibers and signal fiber, respectively. The pump source is structured with a plurality of independent sub pumps arranged around the booster. The laser head supports a segmented mirror configured to reflect pump lights from respective pump sub-sources to the output end of the booster in a counter propagating direction, wherein the booster is configured to emit the amplified signal light reaching up to MW power levels substantially in the SM.