Thermal effects in kilowatt fiber lasers

Thermal effects and their influences on kilowatt ytterbium-doped double-clad (YDDC) fiber lasers are studied through numerical modeling. Solutions to suppress the thermal effects in the YDDC fiber lasers under bidirectional end pump and distributed pump are presented and compared for the first time. It is shown that lower operating temperature and more uniform heat dissipation in fibers can be obtained by optimizing the arrangement of pump powers, pump absorption coefficients, and fiber lengths.