Dual-band Tm3+-doped tellurite fiber amplifier and laser at 1.9 μm and 2.3 μm

Abstract

Ultrabroadband amplification and two-color CW lasing simultaneously near 1.9 μm and 2.3 μm in a Tm3+-doped tellurite fiber were demonstrated experimentally, for the first time to the best of our knowledge. A low-loss Tm3+-doped core fiber from TeO2–ZnO–La2O3–Na2O glasses stable against crystallization was produced by a special technique, providing a low concentration of hydroxyl groups. Supercontinuum from a highly GeO2 doped silica fiber pumped by an Er fiber laser system was used as a seed for an amplifier. A maximum gain of 30 dB and 7 dB was measured at 1.9 μm and 2.3 μm, respectively. We report detailed experimental and theoretical studies, which are in a very good agreement, of laser amplification and generation in the manufactured fiber with carefully measured and calculated parameters. A quantitatively verified numerical model was used to predict power scalability at 2.3 μm in schemes with optimized parameters at increased pump power. The presented results show that a high-quality tellurite fiber is a promising candidate for developing lasers in the 2.3 μm atmospheric window which are particularly relevant for applications in gas sensing, eye-safe laser radars, breath analysis, remote sensing and stand-off trace gas detection.

Blue Electroluminescent Al2O3/Tm2O3 Nanolaminate Films Fabricated by Atomic Layer Deposition on Silicon

“…Rare earth (RE) ions are generally efficient luminescence centers in various matrixes. Nowadays diverse RE-doped insulating materials have been developed for the applications in solid state lasers and phosphors [5,6,7,8,9]. However, it has been widely known that the mismatch in the coordination structure and atomic size of silicon (tetrahedron) and RE ions (octahedron) limit the desired spectroscopic performance due to the clustering of RE ions in the Si host [10,11].…”

Structural investigation of new tellurite glasses belonging to the TeO2-NbO2.5-WO3 system, and a study of their linear and nonlinear optical properties

“…Other potential applications for tellurite bulk glasses and fibers, still in connection with the large third order optical nonlinearity, will be Raman amplification [7][8][9], ultra-fast optical switches or electro-optic modulators [10,11]. Finally, recent works also demonstrate the potentiality of rare-earth doped tellurites to be employed as laser fibers beyond 2 μm [12,13].…”

Engineering of TeO2-ZnO-BaO-Based Glasses for Mid-Infrared Transmitting Optics

“…Among soft glass systems, tellurium oxide (TeO 2 )-based glasses are emerging as enabling materials for mid-infrared (IR) optics due to their wide array of functional properties, such as wide transmission ranging from ultraviolet (UV) to mid-IR (0.4 to 6 μm), low melting temperatures (~800 °C), good thermal stability (≥100 °C), larger index of refraction (≥2.0), low maximum phonon energies (~750 cm −1 ) and larger Raman gain coefficient [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ]. Many researchers have thus studied the tellurite glass materials as contenders for a range of optical applications that include lasers/amplifiers [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ], ceramic bulk lasers [ 21 ], upconverters [ 22 , 23 ], Raman amplifiers [ 24 , 25 ], mid-infrared lasers [ 26 ] and non-linear optical devices [ 27 ].…”

“…Hence, the present study is targeted to develop a high index of refraction (>1.8 at 3, 4 and 5 μm), high transmittance (>70%), low glass transition temperature (≤450 °C), low coefficient of thermal expansion (≤15 × 10 −6 /K at 100 °C) and good mechanical stability (>300 kgf/mm 2 ) glass material for the design of a lens. Many researchers have already reported the TeO 2 –ZnO–based glass systems for various optical applications [ 10 , 12 , 15 , 17 , 19 , 24 , 27 ]. However, the TeO 2 –ZnO glass system showed low thermal and optical properties [ 10 , 12 , 15 , 17 , 19 , 24 , 27 ].…”