Use of thulium-doped LaF3 nanoparticles to lower the phonon energy of the thulium's environment in silica-based optical fibres

Vermillac, Manuel; Fneich, Hussein; Lupi, Jean-François; Tissot, Jean-Baptiste; Kucera, Courtney; Vennéguès, P.; Mehdi, Ahmad; Neuville, Daniel R.; Ballato, John; Blanc, Wilfried

doi:10.1016/j.optmat.2016.11.042

Cited by 40 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Because the MCVD technology, including its nanocrystal-doping modification, provides extremely pure materials, the extrinsic attenuation practically corresponds to the absorption of introduced dopants and free -OH groups remaining in the silica glass matrix. The observed -OH concentration was higher than in the case of conventional solution doping with chlorides salts, has been already reported by doping the solution with LaF3 nanoparticles [38].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 57%

YAG Ceramic Nanocrystals Implementation into MCVD Technology of Active Optical Fibers

et al. 2018

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Nanoparticle doping is an alternative approach the conventional solution doping method allowing the preparation of active optical fibers with improved optical and structural properties. The combination of the nanoparticle doping with MCVD process has brought new technological challenges. We present the preparation of fiber lasers doped with Er-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Er:YAG) nanocrystals. These nanocrystals, prepared by a hydrothermal reaction, were analyzed by several structural methods to determine the mean nanocrystal size and an effective hydrodynamic radius. The nanocrystals were incorporated into silica frits with various porosity made by the conventional MCVD process. The Er:YAG-doped silica frits were processed into preforms, which were drawn into optical fibers. We studied the effect of the nanocrystal size and frit's porosity on the final structural and optical properties of prepared preforms and optical fibers. Selected optical fibers were tested as an active medium in a fiber ring laser setup and the characteristics of the laser were determined. Optimal laser properties were achieved for the fiber length of 7 m. The slope efficiency of the fiber laser was about 42%. Presented method can be simply extended to the deposition of other ceramic nanomaterials.fiber laser materials, such as high thermal stability, improved luminescence, etc. [7]. Recent progress in nanotechnologies has brought a completely novel powerful tool to this field.Rare-earth doped glass has been used as basic material in active fiber core. Tick [8] suggested to replace glass in the fiber core with glass-ceramic material to improve the active fiber properties. This innovative approach started a new research field of glass-ceramic and nanoparticle doped fibers [9,10]. However, the prepared fibers exhibited quite high background losses in comparison with conventional glass fibers [6,[11][12][13][14]. The nanoparticle doping of alumina nanoparticles, for the first time presented at 20th Annual Meeting of the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society in 2007 [15], has brought the major breakthrough in the field of nanoparticle doped active optical fibers. It was demonstrated that the nanoparticle doping is fully competitive with the conventional solution doping method. This novel method started a glamour career; it has attracted huge attention of the researchers [6,16,17] and has rapidly found its place in industry [18,19]. It has been generally accepted that the nanoparticle doping significantly improves properties of active optical fibers [16,20,21] in comparison with the traditional solution doping method [11]. A homogeneous distribution of nanoparticles inside the fiber core suppresses optical losses. The nanoparticle structure and their composition can improve luminescence properties of the incorporated rare-earth element which determines the operating wavelength of the fiber laser [1,6,17].A number of advanced methods and materials have been studied to produce active fibers suitable for fiber lasers. Besides the nanoparticle do...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 57%

YAG Ceramic Nanocrystals Implementation into MCVD Technology of Active Optical Fibers

et al. 2018

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“…Indeed, in these images, particles are lighter than their surrounding medium, revealing their higher effective atomic number. This is explained by the higher concentration of lanthanum in the particles [9]. All along the scan, a black line crosses the 18 pictures.…”

Section: Elongated Particlesmentioning

confidence: 94%

On the morphologies of oxides particles in optical fibers: Effect of the drawing tension and composition

et al. 2019

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Rare-earth-doped oxide nanoparticles in the core of silica optical fibers are becoming well studied as they yield enhanced and tailorable spectroscopic and optical properties. In this paper, the evolution of particle morphology, induced by the drawing step, is studied. Indeed, during the fiber draw process, the glass flows and particles can elongate and even break-up into smaller particles through Rayleigh-Plateau instabilities. The shape of elongated particles is related to the composition as it depends on the viscosity ratio between the particle and the matrix. Moreover, a lower drawing temperature enhances the break-up phenomenon. These observations offer new possibilities for the control of the size and the shape of particles, hence performance of active optical fibers.

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“…This approach also works for other REEs [179,180]. Fibers have been prepared by adding other NPs, such as REE-doped Y 3 Al 5 O 12 (YAG) [181] and LaF 3 [182,183] nanocrystals. These nanocrystals, used as precursors, allow one to improve the REE luminescence properties.…”

Section: Glass-ceramics Fibersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, direct proof of the existence of the initial nanocrystals in the final fiber is rarely presented. In the case of LaF 3 nanoparticles, it has been clearly demonstrated that the integrity of these nanocrystals is not maintained during the MCVD process [183]. Fluor ions react with silicon and form the gaseous SiF 4 compound.…”

Section: Glass-ceramics Fibersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nano-Structured Optical Fibers Made of Glass-Ceramics, and Phase Separated and Metallic Particle-Containing Glasses

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Vermillac

et al. 2019

Fibers

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For years, scientists have been looking for different techniques to make glasses perfect: fully amorphous and ideally homogeneous. Meanwhile, recent advances in the development of particle-containing glasses (PCG), defined in this paper as glass-ceramics, glasses doped with metallic nanoparticles, and phase-separated glasses show that these "imperfect" glasses can result in better optical materials if particles of desired chemistry, size, and shape are present in the glass. It has been shown that PCGs can be used for the fabrication of nanostructured fibers-a novel class of media for fiber optics. These unique optical fibers are able to outperform their traditional glass counterparts in terms of available emission spectral range, quantum efficiency, non-linear properties, fabricated sensors sensitivity, and other parameters. Being rather special, nanostructured fibers require new, unconventional solutions on the materials used, fabrication, and characterization techniques, limiting the use of these novel materials. This work overviews practical aspects and progress in the fabrication and characterization methods of the particle-containing glasses with particular attention to nanostructured fibers made of these materials. A review of the recent achievements shows that current technologies allow producing high-optical quality PCG-fibers of different types, and the unique optical properties of these nanostructured fibers make them prospective for applications in lasers, optical communications, medicine, lighting, and other areas of science and industry.Made of glass, optical fibers inherited all positive and negative properties of this material. Glasses are easy and inexpensive to produce on any scale and in any shape, they can possess high chemical stability and mechanical strength, and have high transparency. However, they could hardly compete, for example, with crystalline materials in thermal conductivity, or rare-earth elements' absorption, emission cross-sections, and available transparency range. Recent advances in glass science showed that properties of this material can be significantly improved if some additional phases are formed or impregnated in the glass. In particular, advances have been achieved in the development of particle-containing glasses: glass-ceramic materials, glasses doped with metallic nanoparticles, and phase-separated glasses. To date, these particle-containing glasses have become quite common and actively used in case of the bulk materials, but are still rather new for fiber optics.The purpose of this review is to summarize recent advances in the fabrication of structured fibers made of particle-containing glasses, their potential benefits, their actual properties, and their potential applications. The review covers three types of particle-containing glasses (PCG): crystalline dielectric particles, i.e., glass-ceramics; metallic nanoparticles (MeNPs); and dielectric amorphous particles, i.e., phase-separated glasses.First, we consider properties of the PCG bulk materials, their potenti...

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Use of thulium-doped LaF3 nanoparticles to lower the phonon energy of the thulium's environment in silica-based optical fibres

Cited by 40 publications

References 19 publications

YAG Ceramic Nanocrystals Implementation into MCVD Technology of Active Optical Fibers

YAG Ceramic Nanocrystals Implementation into MCVD Technology of Active Optical Fibers

On the morphologies of oxides particles in optical fibers: Effect of the drawing tension and composition

Nano-Structured Optical Fibers Made of Glass-Ceramics, and Phase Separated and Metallic Particle-Containing Glasses

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