Preparation and characterizations of Nd:YAG ceramic derived silica fibers drawn by post-feeding molten core approach.

This paper presents a novel molten core approach - post-feeding molten core approach - to draw Nd:YAG ceramic derived silica fibers. This technique can effectively mitigate the diffusion of silica from cladding. The diffused silica concentrations decrease from 73.76 wt.% to 45.08 wt.% at the center of cores, by using the post-feeding method. Micro-Raman spectra indicate that the core materials of those fibers are amorphous and maintain an environment similar to YAG glass. The output laser power and slope efficiency are greatly improved. The enhanced performance of this approach shows that it has considerable potential in fabricating hybrid fibers.