Upper bounds on focusing light through multimode fibers

Wavefront shaping enables precise control of light propagation through multimode fibers (MMFs), facilitating diffraction-limited focusing for applications such as high-resolution single-fiber imaging and high-power fiber amplifiers. While the theoretical intensity enhancement at the focal point is dictated by the number of input degrees of freedom, practical constraints-such as phase-only modulation and experimental noise-impose significant limitations. Despite its importance, the upper bounds of enhancement under these constraints remain largely unexplored. In this work, we establish a theoretical framework to predict the fundamental limits of intensity enhancement with phase-only modulation in the presence of noise-induced phase errors, and we experimentally demonstrate wavefront shaping that approaches these limits. Our experimental results confirm an enhancement factor of 5000 in a large-core MMF, approaching the theoretical upper bound, enabled by noise-tolerant wavefront shaping. These findings provide key insights into the limits of phase-only control in MMFs, with profound implications for single-fiber imaging, optical communication, high-power broad-area fiber amplification, and beyond.