Few-moded ultralarge mode area chalcogenide photonic crystal fiber for mid-infrared high power applications

• Published in: Optics express Vol. 28; no. 11; pp. 16658 - 16672
• Main Authors: Feng, Xian, Ren, He, Xu, Fu, Shi, Jindan, Qi, Sisheng, Hu, Yongsheng, Tang, Jinwen, Han, Feng, Shen, Deyuan, Yang, Zhiyong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 25.05.2020
• ISSN: 1094-4087; 1094-4087
• DOI: 10.1364/OE.389507

We demonstrate a novel few-moded ultralarge mode area chalcogenide glass photonic crystal fiber for mid-infrared high power applications. The numerical simulation indicates that the fiber has ultralarge mode areas of ∼10500 µm 2 and ∼12000 µm 2 for the fundamental mode LP 01 and the lowest higher-order mode LP 11 , respectively. Dual-moded operation is confirmed experimentally at 2 µm, in good agreement with the numerical simulation. By selectively launching technique, low bending loss of 0.7 dB/m, equivalent to 0.55 dB/turn, has been observed in the fiber with a small bending radius of ∼12 cm, indicating excellent bending resistance of the few-moded fiber with such a large mode area. The fiber has been demonstrated to sustain an incident power density up to 150 kW/cm 2 under 2-µm CW laser irradiation, showing the potential of the fiber for high-power applications in mid-infrared.