Demonstration of a homogeneous Yb-doped core fully aperiodic large-pitch fiber laser.

The first demonstration of a 40 μm core homogeneously ytterbium-doped fully aperiodic large-pitch fiber laser, to the best of our knowledge, is reported here. In this concept, the amplification of unwanted high-order modes is prevented by means of an aperiodic inner-cladding structure, while the core and inner-cladding material has a higher refractive index than pure silica. In a laser configuration, up to 252 W of extracted power, together with an optical-to-optical efficiency of 63% with respect to the incident pump power, have been achieved. While an average M2 of 1.4 was measured, the emitted power becomes temporally unstable when exceeding 95 W, owing to the occurrence of modal instabilities.