Patent ID: 7327920

Claim:
A cladding pumped optical fiber device comprising: a cladding pumped fiber; a plurality of optical sources for optically pumping the cladding pumped fiber; a plurality of multimode fibers optically coupling the optical sources to the cladding pumped fiber, each multimode fiber having a first end coupled to one of the plurality of optical sources and a second end coupled only to a cladding of the cladding pumped fiber for coupling multimode light into said cladding of the cladding pumped fiber; and a fiber having a multimode central core, said fiber being coupled to the cladding pumped fiber for coupling single mode light into a central core of the cladding pumped fiber, wherein the plurality of multimode fibers and the fiber having the multimode central core are bundled together into a fiber bundle, and the fiber bundle being tapered to a reduced cross sectional area prior to being coupled to the cladding pumped fiber.