A cladding light stripper may include a double-clad optical fiber having a core for guiding signal light, an inner cladding surrounding the core, and an outer cladding surrounding the inner cladding. The optical fiber may include a stripped portion forming an exposed section. The exposed section may include a plurality of spirally-arranged transversal notches disposed along the optical fiber to enable light to escape the inner cladding upon impinging on the plurality of notches. A circumferential segment of the optical fiber may include a single notch of the plurality of notches. Each of the plurality of notches may have a depth of only a partial distance to the core.

The invention relates to a microstructured optical fiber for generating incoherent supercontinuum light upon feeding of pump light. The microstructured optical fiber has a first section and a second section. A cross-section through the second section perpendicularly to a longitudinal axis of the fiber has a second relative size of microstructure elements and preferably a second pitch that is smaller than a blue edge pitch for the second relative size of microstructure elements. The invention also relates to an incoherent supercontinuum source comprising a microstructured optical fiber according to the invention.

An optical apparatus includes one or more pump sources situated to provide laser pump light, and a gain fiber optically coupled to the one or more pump sources, the gain fiber including an actively doped core situated to produce an output beam, an inner cladding and outer cladding surrounding the doped core and situated to propagate pump light, and a polymer cladding surrounding the outer cladding and situated to guide a selected portion of the pump light coupled into the inner and outer claddings of the gain fiber. Methods of pumping a fiber sources include generating pump light from one or more pump sources, coupling the pump light into a glass inner cladding and a glass outer cladding of a gain fiber of the fiber source such that a portion of the pump light is guided by a polymer cladding surrounding the glass outer cladding, and generating a single-mode output beam from the gain fiber.

The invention relates to an optical waveguide with at least one core region (1) extending along the longitudinal extent of the optical waveguide, and with a first jacket (2) which, viewed in the cross section of the optical waveguide, surrounds the core region (1). The invention further relates to an optical arrangement with such an optical waveguide, and to a method for producing the optical waveguide. The object of the invention is to make available an optical waveguide for high-performance operation, which is improved in relation to the prior art in terms of mode instability. The invention achieves this object by virtue of the fact that the optical waveguide consists of crystalline material at least in the core region (1).

An optical fiber for a fiber laser includes a core to which a rare-earth element is added, a first cladding formed around the core; and a second cladding formed around the first cladding, and excitation light is guided from at least one end of the first cladding to excite the rare-earth element to output a laser oscillation light. An addition concentration of the rare-earth element to the core is different in a longitudinal direction of the optical fiber for a fiber laser, and a core diameter and a numerical aperture of the optical fiber for a fiber laser are constant in the longitudinal direction of the optical fiber for a fiber laser.

An active element added-optical fiber includes a core, having a radius d and including a first region and a second region, and a cladding that surrounds an outer peripheral surface of the core without a gap and propagates light in a few mode. The first region is a region from a central axis of the core to a radius ra and contains ytterbium as an active element. The second region is a region to the radius d that surrounds the first region without a gap and contains a plurality of dopants, one of which is germanium. The active element is not added to a region within the second region from a radius rc to the radius d. The germanium is not added to a region within the first region from the central axis to a radius rb, and a concentration of the germanium is highest among the plurality of dopants.

Laser waveguides, methods and systems for forming a laser waveguide are provided. The waveguide includes an inner cladding layer surrounding a central axis and a glass core surrounding and located outside of the inner cladding layer. The glass core includes a laser-active material. The waveguide includes an outer cladding layer surrounding and located outside of the glass core. The inner cladding, outer cladding and/or core may surround a hollow central channel or bore and may be annular in shape.

Ultrashort pulse fiber amplifier having a pulse width from 200 ps to 200 fs comprising a rare earth oxide doped multicomponent glass fibers for laser amplification, including a core and a cladding, the core comprising at least 2 weight percent glass network modifier selected from BaO, CaO, MgO, ZnO, PbO, K.sub.2O, Na.sub.2O, Li.sub.2O, Y.sub.2O.sub.3, or combinations; wherein the mode of the core is guided with step index difference between the core and the cladding, a numerical aperture of the fiber is between 0.01 and 0.04; core diameter is from about 60 microns to about 150 microns, and a length of the gain fiber is shorter than 60 cm.

In an example, a tandem pumped fiber amplifier may include a seed laser, one or more diode pumps, and a single or plural active core fiber. The single or plural active core fiber may include a first section to operate as an oscillator and a second different section to operate as a power amplifier. The one or more diode pumps may be optically coupled to the first section of the single or plural active core fiber, and the seed laser may be optically coupled to the single active core or an innermost core of the plural active core fiber.

The invention discloses a method of amplifying an optical signal, in particular a data signal, transmitted from a first location (A) to a second location (B) via a first transmission link (10a), wherein said optical signal is amplified by means of a transmitter side remote optically pumped amplifiers (ROPA) (18) comprising a gain medium (24), wherein the gain medium (24) of said transmitter side ROPA (18) is pumped by means of transmitter side pump power (20) provided from said first location (A), characterized in that at least a part of said transmitter side pump power (20) is provided by means of light supplied from said first location (A) to said transmitter side ROPA (18) via a portion of a second transmission link (10b) provided for transmitting optical signals from said second location (B) to said first location (A).