Injection-locked highly Yb³⁺-doped uncoupled-61-core phosphate fiber laser

Uncoupled multicore fibers are promising platforms for advanced optical communications, optical computing, and novel laser systems. In this paper, an injection-locked highly ytterbium (Yb³⁺)-doped uncoupled-61-core phosphate fiber laser at 1030 nm is reported. The 61-core fiber with a core-to-core pitch of 20 μm was fabricated with the stack-and-draw technique. Each core doped with 6-wt.% Yb³⁺ ions has a diameter of 3 μm and numerical aperture of 0.2. Linearly polarized single-frequency output of 9.1 W was obtained from the injection-locked cavity with a 10-cm-long gain fiber at a pump power of 23.6 W. The injection locking of all 61 cores was confirmed by inspecting the longitudinal modes of the individual lasers with a scanning Fabry-Perot interferometer. The performance of the injection-locked 61-core fiber laser was characterized and compared to that of the free-running operation in terms of optical spectrum, near- and far-field intensity profiles, and relative intensity noise.