Noise reduction technique for cladding pumped optical amplifiers
US6278816A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Mar 30, 2000 |
| Grant date | Aug 21, 2001 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Mar 30, 2020 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH01S3/06729
- WIPO fieldOptics
- WIPO sectorInstruments
Abstract
Systems and methods for suppressing cladding modes at the signal wavelength in an optical fiber system utilizing an optical amplifier without perturbing the pump wavelength. An outer cladding of the gain fiber is removed providing a short section of a single mode fiber that does not guide the higher order modes, thus attenuating the higher order modes. Therefore, this system eliminates unwanted noise. In an embodiment, the modes are filtered at the end of the gain section of the optical fiber before splicing to an input fiber. Hydro florate etching can be utilized to remove the outer cladding. The resulting fiber maintains fundamental mode propagation and no mode mixing occurs while losing the higher order modes eliminating the noise.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.