An active element-doped optical fiber includes a core that includes a first region and a second region. The first region satisfies 0≤r≤0.65d, and the second region surrounds the first region and satisfies 0.65d<r≤d, where d is a radius of the core and r is a distance from a central axis of the core in a radial direction. At least a part of the first region is doped with an active element excited by excitation light, the second region is not doped with the active element, and a shape index is 0.99 or more and less than 1.

An active waveguide including active and passive rods which have respective polymeric claddings mechanically and optically coupled to one another so as to define a side pumping scheme. One or a plurality of elements are embedded in one of or both active and passive rods and have a refractive index lower than the lowest of refractive indices of the respective active and passive rods at least 1*10.sup.−3. The MM core of the active rod includes inner and outer concentric regions with a concentration of light emitters in the outer region being lower than that of the inner region at more than 50% and, a radius of the inner region being at most 92% of that of the outer region. The unabsorbed pump light at the output of the active waveguide constitutes less than 1% of the delivered pump light which in combination with the refractive index of the embedded elements and selectively doped core regions contribute to laser efficiency of at least 86%.

An optical fiber, such as in some instances a high-power, diode-pumped, dual-clad, ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier (YDFAs), having a fundamental mode and at least one higher order mode, wherein the higher order mode or modes have mode areas that are substantially larger than a mode area of the fundamental mode.

An amplification optical fiber includes: a core; an inner cladding having a refractive index lower than a refractive index of the core, wherein an active element pumped by pumping light is entirely doped to the core, and a relative effective refractive index difference of light in an LP01 mode is greater than or equal to 0.05% and a relative effective refractive index difference of light in an LP21 mode is less than 0.05% in light propagating through the core.

[Problem] To easily measure and detect a failure part of a long-distance optical cable by low-cost equipment in a configuration in which an isolator is disposed in the vicinity of an optical amplifier in order to improve and stabilize optical transmission performance. [Solution] An optical amplifier 50 is configured to be provided with a multiplexing/demultiplexing means as first WDM filters 51a, 51b on both sides of a set of an isolator 40 and an EDF 14 of a submarine cable 13, the first WDM filters multiplexing/demultiplexing OTDR light 35a, 35b (measurement light) for measuring a submarine cable failure sent to the submarine cable 13 in opposite directions from the sides of a sending device and a receiving device, and main signal light 15, transmitting the multiplexed/demultiplexed main signal light 15 to a main path 13 that passes through the isolator 40 and the EDF 14, and transmitting the multiplexed/demultiplexed OTDR light 35a, 35b to a bypass path 52 that bypasses the isolator 40 and the EDF 14.

An optical fiber amplifier according to one embodiment includes a multicore fiber doped with erbium, and the multicore fiber is twisted and helically wound to form a fiber coil.

A wave guide may have an index profile including at least one maximum. The maximum or maxima of the index profile may correspond respectively to at least one maximum intensity of the outlet radiation with a mode of desired order. The wave guide may also have at least one doping ion configured to absorb the pump radiation. The doping ion or ions may have a concentration profile of doping ions including at least one maximum.

An optical element is provided. The optical element may comprise a material, the material being a matrix and a set of particles included in the matrix, the material having a molar fraction of SiO.sub.2 higher than or equal to 65 percent, each particle having a dimension smaller than or equal to 80 nanometers.

A multi-clad optical fiber design is described in order to provide low optical loss, a high numerical aperture (NA), and high optical gain for the fundamental propagating mode, the linearly polarized (LP) 01 mode in the UV and visible portion of the optical spectrum. The optical fiber design may contain dopants in order to simultaneously increase the optical gain in the core region while avoiding additional losses during the fiber fabrication process. The optical fiber design may incorporate rare-earth dopants for efficient lasing. Additionally, the modal characteristics of the propagating modes in the optical core promote highly efficient nonlinear mixing, providing for a high beam quality (M.sup.2<1.5) output of the emitted light.

An apparatus includes an optical fiber configured to transport an optical signal. A cross-section of the optical fiber has a longer slow-axis dimension and a shorter fast-axis dimension. The optical fiber includes a core configured to receive and amplify the optical signal, end features optically coupled to the core at opposite ends of the core, and a cladding surrounding the core and end features. The core has a height in the slow-axis dimension and a width in the fast-axis dimension. Each end feature has a height in the slow-axis dimension and a width in the fast-axis dimension. The core has a lower bend loss than the end features. The optical fiber is configured to confine optical power of a fundamental mode in the core and allow optical power of higher-order mode(s) to leak from the core into the end features. Each end feature's height is less than the core's width.