Measuring photodarkening from single-mode ytterbium doped silica fibers

Photodarkening is recognized as a potentially important limiting factor on the lifetime and reliability of many Yb-doped fiber lasers and amplifiers. In particular, a photodarkening process attributed to the formation of photoinduced structural transformations can induce excess loss in the doped glass core of the fiber, resulting in reduced output power efficiency. Yet, quantifiable measurement techniques of this phenomenon have been scarce in the literature to date. Here we present a fast, simple and repeatable method to measure and compare the photodarkening rate caused by the formation of photoinduced structural transformations from Yb-doped single-mode fibers. The method relies on quantifying observations of transmission changes at visible wavelengths as an indicative measure of photodarkening at the signal wavelengths. Preliminary measurement results are presented supporting the utility of the technique for benchmarking the photodarkening behavior of different Yb-doped fibers. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.