Spatial mode and wavelength switchable erbium-doped fiber laser based on a fiber beam shaper

Abstract

A fiber-based beam shaper to adjust the distribution of spatial modes in a few-mode fiber (FMF) is theoretically and experimentally investigated in this work. A compact and robust device, composed with a single mode fiber-graded index multimode fiber-few mode fiber (SMF-GIMF-FMF), is fabricated by simply fusion splicing of the fibers. Switchable spatial modes and multi-wavelength comb are obtained by the combination of the beam shaper and the few-mode fiber Bragg grating (FM-FBG). This combination acts as a filter to select the wavelength and spatial mode in the laser. A spatial mode switchable fiber laser with high mode purity is extended among LP01, LP11 and cylindrical vector beam (CVB) by adjusting the pressure applied on the beam shaper. Five-discrete wavelengths and their free combination wavelength comb are emitted with a slope efficiency higher than 10%. The fiber laser can be used in the spatial- and wavelength-division multiplexing (SWDM) fiber communication networks requiring particular structure light field.