Heat transport in solid and air-clad fibers for high-power fiber lasers

An analytical approach for the thermal design for high-power fiber lasers and fiber components is presented. The approach is based on defining a thermal resistance for each fiber layer. Thus the importance of each layer for the heat transport is made transparent and the influence of the parameters can be studied for each layer separately. Furthermore the analysis and analytic optimization of interacting effects of groups of layers is possible. The approach is applied to air-clad-fiber with results differing up to 40 % from previous works. Furthermore the heat transport from splices is analyzed and recommendations for the thermal packaging of splices and fiber integrated components are given.