ABSTRACT
The earliest work on ber lasers was driven by the ease of spatial mode control [1]. The signicant interest in ber lasers in the past decade or so has been, to a large extent, due to their ability to scale average powers to well beyond kilowatts, thanks to their unique geometry allowing heat to be dissipated over a relatively large surface located very close to the active core. The length of the ber can be adjusted independently to allow further control of heat load, gain, and nonlinearity, in contrast to their solid-state counterparts. The development of fully integrated monolithic high-power ber lasers in the past decade has been fundamental to their commercial success. Such systems signicantly lower the cost and skill required for their operation in demanding manufacturing environments. Today, single-mode powers of up to 10 kW and multimode powers of up to 100 kW are available from ber lasers (IPG Photonics®), enabling heavy-duty applications from ship building to defense.
