Nd-glass laser with three-dimensional optical waveguide

Abstract

Room-temperature laser operation in a three-dimensional Nd-glass waveguide is reported. The waveguide was fabricated by a double-diffusion process with ion migration. A Nd-glass laser, 4 mm in length, was end-pumped at 590-nm wavelength with a pulsed Rhodamine 6G dye laser. The threshold power for the Nd-glass waveguide laser was about 18 μJ, which was nearly one-half of that for a conventional Nd-glass laser without guiding structure. The measured value of the threshold for a waveguide laser agrees with the theoretical calculation.

Net gain demonstration with glass hybrid optical amplifiers made by ion-exchange and wafer bonding

“…Nonetheless, most of them can be related to the three major families that are presented on Figure 1. Schematic a) represents an optical amplifier formed by an ion-exchange in an homogeneously-doped glass substrate 4,5 . This solution has benefited on one hand, from the maturity and the advantages Ion-exchanged c) strip of ion-exchange technique in passive glass substrates, which provides high quality integrated optical circuits (IOCs) at low manufacturing costs 6 ; and on the other hand from the developments of laser glass science, which continuously provides always more efficient glass hosts for rare-earth ions.…”

Optical amplifier made by reporting an Er3+/Yb3+-codoped glass layer on an ion-exchanged passive glass substrate by wafer bonding

“…The first type is the one of an optical amplifier formed by an ion-exchange in an homogeneously-doped glass substrate. 5,6 This solution has benefited from both the maturity and the advantages of ion-exchange technique in passive glass substrates, which provides high quality integrated optical circuits (IOCs) at low manufacturing costs 7 ; and the development of laser glass science, which continuously provides always more efficient glass hosts for rare-earths. As their passive counterparts and because of the ion diffusion process smoothness, amplifying ion-exchanged waveguides present the low propagation losses that allow a good amplifying efficiency.…”

Ion-exchanged glass waveguide technology: a review

“…This was a 4-mm long multimode waveguide in which pulsed laser operation was achieved. 23 This early waveguide laser work was largely forgotten, and it was more than a decade before research on ion-exchanged waveguides in rare-earth doped glasses really started.…”

“…Interestingly, the first functional device fabricated by ion exchange in glass was a quite advanced active Nd-doped waveguide laser 23 discussed in Sec. 6.3.…”

“…The waveguide used was highly multimode and was fabricated with a field-assisted burial process. 23 Not much happened in the field for more than a decade until, largely inspired by the promise of rare-earth-doped fibers, the field was "re-born" in 1989. 136 In the early 1990s several studies were reported, demonstrating mostly Nd-doped waveguide lasers and amplifiers operating at ∼1.06 μm wavelength.…”