We demonstrate a few-mode erbium-doped fiber amplifier employing a mode-selective photonic lantern for controlling the modal content of the pump light. Amplification of six spatial modes in a 5 m long erbium-doped fiber to similar to 6.2 dBm average power is obtained while maintaining high modal fidelity. Through mode-selective forward pumping of the two degenerate LP21 modes operating at 976 nm, differential modal gains of <1 dB between all modes and signal gains of similar to 16 dB at 1550 nm are achieved. In addition, low differential modal gain for near-full C-band operation is demonstrated. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America
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