title: Propagating modes in gain-guided optical fibers.
abstract: Optical fibers in which gain-guiding effects are significant or even dominant compared with conventional index guiding may become of practical interest for future high-power single-mode fiber lasers. I derive the propagation characteristics of symmetrical slab waveguides and cylindrical optical fibers having arbitrary amounts of mixed gain and index guiding, assuming a single uniform transverse profile for both the gain and the refractive-index steps. Optical fibers of this type are best characterized by using a complex-valued v-squared parameter in place of the real-valued v parameter commonly used to describe conventional index-guided optical fibers.
authors.affiliation: Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, California 94305, USA. siegman@stanford.edu
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Siegman