Wavefront shaping enables high-power multimode fiber amplifier with output focus

Stefan Rothe; Chun-Wei Chen; Peyman Ahmadi; KyeoReh Lee; Kabis Wisal; Mert Ercan; Nathan Vigne; A. Douglas Stone; Hui Cao

doi:10.1126/science.ady2226

Wavefront shaping enables high-power multimode fiber amplifier with output focus

Stefan Rothe, Chun-Wei Chen, Peyman Ahmadi, KyeoReh Lee, Kabis Wisal, Mert Ercan, Nathan Vigne, A. Douglas Stone, Hui Cao

Department of Physics

Yale University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (SciVal)

Abstract

High-power fiber lasers are powerful tools used in science, industry, and defense. A major roadblock for further power scaling of single-frequency fiber laser amplifiers is stimulated brillouin scattering. efforts have been made to mitigate this nonlinear process, but these were mostly limited to single-mode or few-mode fiber amplifiers, which have good beam quality. Here, we explored a highly multimode fiber amplifier in which stimulated brillouin scattering was greatly suppressed due to a reduction of light intensity in a large fiber core and a broadening of the brillouin scattering spectrum by multimode excitation. by applying a spatial wavefront shaping technique to the input light of a nonlinear amplifier, the output beam was focused to a diffraction-limited spot. Our multimode fiber amplifier can operate at high power with high efficiency and narrow linewidth, which ensures high coherence. Optical wavefront shaping enables coherent control of multimode laser amplification, with potential applications in coherent beam combining, large-scale interferometry and directed energy delivery.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	173-177
Number of pages	5
Journal	Science
Volume	390
Issue number	6769
Early online date	9 Oct 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ady2226
Publication status	Published - 9 Oct 2025

Funding

We thank F. M. Ferreira, N. Bender, O. D. Miller, O. Henderson-Sapir, S. C. Warren-Smith, D. L. Smith, L. V. Nguyen, D. J. Ottaway, H. Ebendorff-Heidepriem, M. J. F. Digonnet, and J. Ballato for fruitful discussions; N. Bernardo and V. Bernardo at Yale University for technical assistance; and AFL, Thorlabs, Lightel, and NP Photonics for support. This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR grant FA9550-24-1-0182 to H.C. and A.D.S.) and the German Research Foundation (DFG grant RO 7348/1-1 to S.R.).

Funders	Funder number
Yale University
Air Force Office of Scientific Research	FA9550-24-1-0182
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft	RO 7348/1-1

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10.1126/science.ady2226

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title = "Wavefront shaping enables high-power multimode fiber amplifier with output focus",

abstract = "High-power fiber lasers are powerful tools used in science, industry, and defense. A major roadblock for further power scaling of single-frequency fiber laser amplifiers is stimulated brillouin scattering. efforts have been made to mitigate this nonlinear process, but these were mostly limited to single-mode or few-mode fiber amplifiers, which have good beam quality. Here, we explored a highly multimode fiber amplifier in which stimulated brillouin scattering was greatly suppressed due to a reduction of light intensity in a large fiber core and a broadening of the brillouin scattering spectrum by multimode excitation. by applying a spatial wavefront shaping technique to the input light of a nonlinear amplifier, the output beam was focused to a diffraction-limited spot. Our multimode fiber amplifier can operate at high power with high efficiency and narrow linewidth, which ensures high coherence. Optical wavefront shaping enables coherent control of multimode laser amplification, with potential applications in coherent beam combining, large-scale interferometry and directed energy delivery.",

author = "Stefan Rothe and Chun-Wei Chen and Peyman Ahmadi and KyeoReh Lee and Kabis Wisal and Mert Ercan and Nathan Vigne and Stone, \{A. Douglas\} and Hui Cao",

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AU - Rothe, Stefan

AU - Chen, Chun-Wei

AU - Ahmadi, Peyman

AU - Lee, KyeoReh

AU - Wisal, Kabis

AU - Ercan, Mert

AU - Vigne, Nathan

AU - Stone, A. Douglas

AU - Cao, Hui

PY - 2025/10/9

Y1 - 2025/10/9

N2 - High-power fiber lasers are powerful tools used in science, industry, and defense. A major roadblock for further power scaling of single-frequency fiber laser amplifiers is stimulated brillouin scattering. efforts have been made to mitigate this nonlinear process, but these were mostly limited to single-mode or few-mode fiber amplifiers, which have good beam quality. Here, we explored a highly multimode fiber amplifier in which stimulated brillouin scattering was greatly suppressed due to a reduction of light intensity in a large fiber core and a broadening of the brillouin scattering spectrum by multimode excitation. by applying a spatial wavefront shaping technique to the input light of a nonlinear amplifier, the output beam was focused to a diffraction-limited spot. Our multimode fiber amplifier can operate at high power with high efficiency and narrow linewidth, which ensures high coherence. Optical wavefront shaping enables coherent control of multimode laser amplification, with potential applications in coherent beam combining, large-scale interferometry and directed energy delivery.

AB - High-power fiber lasers are powerful tools used in science, industry, and defense. A major roadblock for further power scaling of single-frequency fiber laser amplifiers is stimulated brillouin scattering. efforts have been made to mitigate this nonlinear process, but these were mostly limited to single-mode or few-mode fiber amplifiers, which have good beam quality. Here, we explored a highly multimode fiber amplifier in which stimulated brillouin scattering was greatly suppressed due to a reduction of light intensity in a large fiber core and a broadening of the brillouin scattering spectrum by multimode excitation. by applying a spatial wavefront shaping technique to the input light of a nonlinear amplifier, the output beam was focused to a diffraction-limited spot. Our multimode fiber amplifier can operate at high power with high efficiency and narrow linewidth, which ensures high coherence. Optical wavefront shaping enables coherent control of multimode laser amplification, with potential applications in coherent beam combining, large-scale interferometry and directed energy delivery.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105018275987

U2 - 10.1126/science.ady2226

DO - 10.1126/science.ady2226

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VL - 390

SP - 173

EP - 177

JO - Science

JF - Science

IS - 6769

ER -

Wavefront shaping enables high-power multimode fiber amplifier with output focus

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