The spectral characteristics and sensitivities of a tapered two-mode fiber sandwiched between two single-mode fibers are systematically investigated. Theoretical calculations reveal that a dispersion turning point (DTP) appears when the group effective refractive index (RI) difference between the fundamental mode and the higher-order mode equals zero; as a result, ultrahigh RI sensitivities can be achieved. Furthermore, the location of the DTP is strongly dependent on the tapering condition. Then, we experimentally demonstrate high sensitivities of the RI sensor with the waist diameter of ～4 μm by means of immersing it in a flow cell filled with glycerol solution. In further tracking of the resonant wavelength shift around the DTP, it is found that the proposed RI sensor exhibits a sensitivity of 1.81 × 10⁴ nm/RIU and a limit of detection down up to 3.29 × 10 ⁵ RIU in a liquid glycerol solution.

Using a heavily erbium-doped aluminosilicate fiber prepared by the sol-gel method combined with high temperature sintering, the temperature dependence of the spectrum around the 1.55 nm band and single-mode fiber laser properties were investigated, respectively. The absorption cross section increases 29.2% at ～1558 nm with the temperature increasing from 20°C to 140°C, while the emission cross section slightly increases 4.3%. In addition, the laser slope of the heavily erbium-doped aluminosilicate fiber at 1558 nm decreases 4.4% from 10.8% to 6.4% with the temperature increasing from 18°C to 440°C. Meanwhile, an experiment lasting 3 h proves that the fiber laser has excellent stability below 440°C.

We propose a novel waveguide design of a polarization-maintaining few mode fiber (PM-FMF) supporting ≥10 non-degenerate modes, utilizing a central circular air hole and a circumjacent elliptical-ring core. The structure endows a new degree of freedom to adjust the birefringence of all the guided modes, including the fundamental polarization mode. Numerical simulations demonstrate that, by optimizing the air hole and elliptical-ring core, a PM-FMF supporting 10 distinctive polarization modes has been achieved, and the effective index difference Δneff between the adjacent guided modes could be kept larger than 1.32×10 4 over the whole C+L band. The proposed fiber structure can be flexibly tailored to support an even larger number of modes in PM-FMF (14-mode PM-FMF has been demonstrated as an example), which can be readily applicable to a scalable mode division multiplexing system.

To design a compact erbium-doped fiber laser, a high-concentration erbium-doped fiber (EDF) is needed. However, increasing the erbium ion (Er3+) concentration can reduce the EDF performance via the Er3+-Er3+ interaction. In this Letter, we investigate the Er3+-Er3+ interaction effect by designing a tunable erbium-doped fiber-ring laser (EDFRL). This is the first time (to the best of our knowledge) that someone has considered different numbers of ions per cluster and simulated the EDFRL output power degradation due to ion–ion interaction. If the number of ions in the cluster is increased, the lasing output power will decrease accordingly. The most dominant effect is seen in the 1530 nm wavelength region, where the EDF shows a higher signal absorption compared to the other wavelength region. Moreover, a comparison has been done for lasing performance analysis with different dopant ion concentrations. The comparison results show that a higher dopant concentration is advantageous for longer-wavelength lasing.

Two kinds of Nb-doped silica fibers, an NbCl5-doped fiber and an Nb2O5-doped fiber, are fabricated and characterized in this Letter. First, the refractive index profiles of both fibers are obtained, and then their Raman spectra are measured with 785 nm exciting light. The Nb-doped fibers’ Raman spectra are compared with a conventional GeO2-doped single-mode silica fiber that is prepared with the same method and under the same conditions. As a result, the Raman gain coefficients of the Nb-doped silica fiber core are obtained. The experimental results show that Nb2O5 doping can enhance the Raman scattering intensity of the optical fibers.

We present a single-mode multilayer-core fiber with a large mode area (LMA) and a low bending loss in this Letter. A low equivalent core-cladding refractive index difference is achieved by exploiting the multilayer structure. The multilayer structure has a better bending performance than a traditional step-index core and this structure also contributes to realizing different curved refractive index profiles that have a better bending performance. An index trench is also introduced to dramatically reduce the bending loss. The experimental results show that, at a wavelength of 1550 nm, the mode area of the fabricated fiber is about 215.5 μm2 and the bending loss is 0.58 dB/turn at a 10 mm bending radius. The LMA and excellent bending performance can be obtained simultaneously with the proposed fiber.