title: Thermally induced waveguide changes in active fibers.
abstract: Thermally induced waveguide changes become significant for very large mode area fibers. This results in a reduction of the mode-field diameter, but simultaneously in an improvement of the beam quality. In this work the first systematic experimental characterization of the reduction of the mode-field diameter in various fibers during high-power operation is carried out. It is shown that the reduction of the mode-field diameter shows a characteristic behavior that scales with the core size but that is independent of the particular fiber design. Furthermore, the strength of the actual index change is experimentally estimated, and its use to overcome avoided crossings is discussed and experimentally demonstrated.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Albert-Einstein-Str. 15, 07745 Jena, Germany. jansen@iap.uni-jena.de
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Jansen
authors.forename: Fabian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Stutzki
authors.forename: Hans-Jürgen
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Otto
authors.forename: Tino
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Eidam
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Liem
authors.forename: Cesar
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jauregui
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Limpert
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tünnermann