Adaptive mode control of a few-mode fiber by real-time mode decomposition

A novel approach to adaptively control the beam profile in a few-mode fiber is experimentally demonstrated. We stress the fiber through an electric-controlled polarization controller, whose driven voltage depends on the current and target modal content difference obtained with the real-time mode decomposition. We have achieved selective excitations of LP01 and LP11 modes, as well as significant improvement of the beam quality factor, which may play crucial roles for high-power fiber lasers, fiber based telecommunication systems and other fundamental researches and applications.