Cladded single crystal fibers for high power fiber lasers

We report on the recent progress in the development of cladded single crystal fibers for high power single frequency lasers. Various rare earth doped single crystal YAG fibers with diameters down to 17 lam with length > 1 m have been successfully drawn using a state-of-the-art Laser Heated Pedestal Growth system. Single and double cladding on rare earth doped YAG fibers have been developed using glasses where optical and physical properties were precisely matched to doped YAG core single crystal fiber. The double clad Yb:YAG fiber structures have dimensions analogous to large mode area (LMA) silica fiber. We also report successful fabrications of all crystalline core/clad fibers where thermal and optical properties are superior over glass cladded YAG fibers. Various fabrication methods, optical characterization and gain measurements on these cladded YAG fibers are reported.