Date of Award

5-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Materials Science and Engineering

Committee Chair/Advisor

John Ballato

Committee Member

Peter Dragic

Committee Member

Thomas W. Hawkins

Committee Member

Kyle Brinkman

Committee Member

Stephen Foulger

Abstract

Optical fiber-based amplifiers and lasers enable a great many useful devices and conveniences. Unfortunately, however, they can generate considerable heat during operation that drives the need for complex cooling solutions, thus reducing many of the size, weight, and power (SWAP) benefits for which fiber lasers are known. Additionally, at elevated temperatures, thermally-driven phenomena, such as Transverse Mode Instability (TMI), can be induced that limit the power-scaling of fiber lasers. The focus of this Dissertation is to explore novel approaches to thermal management in fiber lasers through judicious materials science and engineering to obviate the aforementioned limitations. Fibers studied in this Dissertation were fabricated using industry-standard, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) processes since only this process affords the potential for near-intrinsic levels of purity and compositional control needed to explore subtle, all-optical internal cooling effects previously thought impossible in silica optical fibers.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.