Polarization Effects on Thermal-Induced Mode Instabilities in High Power Fiber Lasers

We present detailed studies of the effect of polarization on thermal-induced mode instability (MI) in ytterbium-doped fiber amplifiers. Based on a steady-state theoretical model, which takes both electric fields along the two principal axes into consideration, the effect of polarization effects on the gain of Stokes wave was analyzed, which shows that the polarization characteristics of the fiber laser have no impact on the threshold of MI. Experimental validation of the theoretical analysis is presented with experimental results agreeing well with the theoretical results, in which polarization-maintained and non-polarization-maintained fiber lasers with core/inner cladding diameter of 30/250um and core NA of 0.07 were employed. The MI threshold power is measured to be about 367~386W.