An old finding leads to innovation in fiber amplifiers

In 1983 David Payne reported birefringence in optical fibers is a direct consequence of the thermal history of the fiber or preforms, Appl. Opt.?22, 2374-2379 (1983). Today, these observations have led to the design of a tapered active spun fiber by Ampliconyx and produced by Ceramoptec with stable polarisation and 10,000 times lower birefringnce compared to PANDA preforms. This dramatically lowers the dependence on pump diode quality and provides for much cheaper production. This recently patent protected technology can be used for fiber amplifiers providing excellent beam quality suitable for power scaling and coherent beam combining to realise unmatches power levels from pulsed fiber lasers.