Abstract

Multi-core optical fibers (MCF) are utilized for a great variety of applications in various areas of photonics, they have attracted a lot of attention in the fields of high capacity optical communications and fiber lasers. Recently we have demonstrated that nonlinear effects in MCFs, which are generally undesirable in many applications, can be utilized for nonlinear pulse combining and compression [1]. Such approach can be more robust and insensitive to phase fluctuations as compared with linear beams combining. In our paper [2] we have considered ring, hexagonal and square MCFs and found the best combination efficiency and maximum pulse compression, which can be obtained by each type of MCF. Fibers with square and hexagonal core configurations offered the best combination efficiency, so it is possible to combine 91.6% of total energy using 7-core hexagonal fiber, for example.

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