We present detailed numerical simulations of modal instabilities in high-power Yb-doped fiber amplifiers using a time-dependent temperature solver coupled to the optical fields and population inversion equations. The temperature is computed by solving the heat equation in polar coordinates using a 2D second-order alternating direction implicit method. We show that the higher-order modal content rises dramatically in the vicinity of the threshold and we recover the three power-dependent regions that are characteristic of the transfer of energy. We also investigate the dependence of the threshold on the seed power and the modal content ratio of the seed. The latter has a minimal effect on the threshold while it is shown that for the fiber configuration investigated, the modal instability threshold scales linearly over a wide range with the seed power. In addition, two different gain-tailored core designs are investigated and are shown to have higher thresholds than that of a uniformly doped core. Finally, we show that this full time-dependent model which does not assume a frequency offset between the modes a priori, predicts a reduced threshold when the seed is modulated at the KHz level. This is in agreement with the steady-periodic approach to this phenomenon.

Beam combining of phase-modulated kilowatt fiber amplifiers has generated considerable interest recently. We describe in the time domain how stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is generated in an optical fiber under phase-modulated laser conditions, and we analyze different phase modulation techniques. The temporal and spatial evolutions of the acoustic phonon, laser, and Stokes fields are determined by solving the coupled three-wave interaction system. Numerical accuracy is verified through agreement with the analytical solution for the un-modulated case and through the standard photon conservation relation for counter-propagating optical fields. As a test for a modulated laser, a sinusoidal phase modulation is examined for a broad range of modulation amplitudes and frequencies. We show that, at high modulation frequencies, our simulations agree with the analytical results obtained from decomposing the optical power into its frequency components. At low modulation frequencies, there is a significant departure due to the appreciable cross talk among the laser and Stokes sidebands. We also examine SBS suppression for a white noise source and show significant departures for short fibers from analytically derived formulas. Finally, SBS suppression through the application of pseudo-random bit sequence modulation is examined for various patterns. It is shown that for a fiber length of 9 m the patterns at or near n=7 provide the best mitigation of SBS with suppression factors approaching 17 dB at a modulation frequency of 5 GHz.

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Raman fiber lasers have been proposed as potential candidates for scaling beyond the power limitations imposed on near diffraction-limited rare-earth doped fiber lasers. One limitation is the modal instability (MI) and we explore the physics of this phenomenon in Raman fiber amplifiers (RFAs). By utilizing the conservation of number of photons and conservation of energy in the absence of loss, the 3 × 3 governing system of nonlinear equations describing the pump and the signal modal content are decoupled and solved analytically for cladding-pumped RFAs. By comparing the extracted signal at MI threshold for the same step index-fiber, it is found that the MI threshold is independent of the length of the amplifier or whether the amplifier is co-pumped or counter-pumped; dictated by the integrated heat load along the length of fiber. We extend our treatment to gain-tailored RFAs and show that this approach is of limited utility in suppressing MI. Finally, we formulate the physics of MI in core-pumped RFAs where both pump and signal interferences participate in writing the time-dependent index of refraction grating.

We present experimental and theoretical studies on the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) threshold in fiber amplifiers seeded with a spectrally broadened single-frequency laser source. An electro-optic phase modulator is driven with various pseudo-random binary sequence (PRBS) patterns to highlight the unique characteristics of this linewidth broadening technique and its facility in SBS mitigation. Theoretical predictions show a variation in SBS suppression based on PRBS pattern and modulation frequency. These predictions are experimentally investigated in a kilowatt level monolithic fiber amplifier operating with near diffraction-limited beam quality. We also show Rayleigh scattering and other sources of back reflected light in phase modulated signals can seed the SBS process and significantly reduce the nonlinear threshold.