Simulation of High Power Optical Fiber Amplifiers
Abstract
High power fiber laser amplifiers are of great interest to the Department of Defense as potential “deep magazine” speed of light weapons that can defend against missiles and can disrupt or destroy enemy equipment without causing collateral damage. A significant roadblock in the path to amplifiers of higher power was revealed when scientists discovered Transverse Mode Instability (TMI). TMI leads to a sudden breakdown in beam quality at high power, preventing beam combination of multiple fiber amplifiers. Numerical simulation of TMI and other nonlinear optical effects in fiber amplifiers can provide important insights for developing new mitigation strategies that will allow further power scaling. Such simulation techniques must however be able to numerically solve the field propagation equations within a long fiber a vast number of times. This project will develop such numerical techniques that are faster than the state of the art.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 14, 2022
- Source ID
- FA95501910237
Entities
People
- Leszek F. Demkowicz
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- United States Air Force
- University of Texas at Austin