Nonlinear spatial reshaping of pulsed beam in a step-index few-mode optical fiber

In this paper we demonstrate the spatial and spectral dynamics of pulse propagation in a step-index few-mode optical fiber, through an experimental and numerical analysis. The Kerr induced spatial self-cleaning is demonstrated by coupling a sub-nanosecond pulsed laser at 532nm into the fiber supporting above 10 modes. A bell-shaped and approximately single mode beam can be obtained for peak powers above 6kW and it remained relatively unchanged up to 25kW. But at significantly higher input peak powers, the spatial contents of spectral sidebands change dramatically, because of intermodal four wave mixing effect.