Abstract

Fiber systems are nowadays widely spread because of their compactness, robustness, long term stability and versatility. High spatial coherence can be easily obtained by using single-mode fibers. However these fibers deliver generally Gaussian like mode whereas many applications (large scale laser facilities dedicated to laser-matter interaction such as LMJ or NIF, laser-biological treatments etc.) would benefit of fiber systems delivering homogenized intensity. Because of fabrication difficulties it is only recently that such single-mode fibers delivering top-hat profile have been successfully realized [1-2]. Nevertheless the light polarization was not then controlled which is detrimental for many applications. In this work we present the first polarization maintaining (PM) fibers delivering flattened modes.

© 2015 IEEE