Glasses containing Er3+ ions of 0.3 to 7 cation mol percent were prepared in the system of Ga2S3-GeS2-LaS3. Frequency upconversion spectra of Er3+ in the glasses were measured under the excitation at 800 nm and 980 nm. Green emissions at 533 nm (2H11/2yields4I15/2) and 552 nm (4S3/2yields4I15/2), and red emission at 665 nm (4F9/2yields4I15/2) were observed.In addition to these emission bands, 497 nm emission assigned to the 4F7/2yields4I15/2 transition was observed. The spectral properties are analyzed from the view points of low phonon energy property and high refractive index.
Cooperative upconversion processes and Yb-Er energy transfer efficiencies in high Er concentration phosphate glasses were studied. The cooperative upconversion coefficients were deduced from the pump intensity dependence of luminescence decay curves. Cooperative upconversion coefficients of 4I13/2 level, for Er3+ concentrations higher than 1 X 1020 cm-3, are one order of magnitude smaller than the ones reported for silica glass. The increase in the cooperative upconversion coefficient with the increase in Er3+ concentration was found to be small and Er3+ concentrations as high as 3.7 X 1020 cm3+ in this glass are feasible. Yb-Er energy transfer efficiency in Yb/Er co-doped phosphate glasses, with Er concentrations as high as 1.9 X 1020 cm-3 and 2.4 X 1020 cm-3, were measured with a pump and probe technique and also estimated from lifetime measurements. The energy transfer efficiencies exceed 95 percent, although the ratio of the concentrations, Yb/Er, is only about 1.2 and 2 in the samples studied.This confirms that efficient pumping of high Er3+ concentration phosphate glass, required in waveguide amplifiers, can be achieved utilizing Yb/Er co-doping.
Modeling results for Er3+-doped waveguide amplifiers fabricated by various ion-exchange processes are presented. The gain performance of these devices for 977 nm and 1.48 micrometers pump wavelengths are compared. Measured spectroscopic properties of a phosphate glass with Er3+ concentration of 3.7 X 1020 cm-3 are used throughout the modeling, and waveguide propagation loss of 0.1 dB/cm is used. It is shown that gain coefficients exceeding 5 dB/cm are feasible utilizing optimized ion- exchanged waveguides in this glass. The modeling is performed for glasses doped with erbium only, excluding possible ytterbium codoping.
Erbium-doped glasses are of great interest for optical fiber telecommunications at 1.5 micrometers . The sol-gel process offers many advantages for synthesizing materials for integrated optical devices. Some of these advantages include high-purity, low-temperature synthesis, and excellent control and flexibility over composition and design. In this paper, we report the first Er-doped sol-gel waveguides. We examined several approaches for alleviating the OH- quenching problem associated with conventional sol-gel processes. We prepared the first ion exchangeable Er-doped glasses which can be fabricated into integrated optical devices. The concept of molecular docking of Er as a coordinate complex in gel matrices to improve the luminescence properties has been applied. We also exploited the concept of using the evanescence field to couple energy into an Er-doped sol-gel layer on top of a glass optical device. New progresses in modifying the properties of gel matrices for integrated optical device applications are presented.
We report on fabrication and characterization of channel waveguide lasers, operating near 1.06 micrometers and made in a commercial neodymium-doped glass using thermal silver ion exchange. The slope efficiency and threshold are measured as a function of waveguide width. The waveguide structure with a 7.5 micrometers width shows the best laser characteristics in terms of threshold and slope efficiency. The emitted wavelength, while close to the peak emission wavelength of the bulk glass at 1.059 micrometers , varies with the waveguide width. This behavior is interpreted in terms of the birefringence and the dichroism of the waveguides.
A channel waveguide on an erbium doped phosphate laser glass (Kigre Q89) was fabricated by a dry silver-film ion exchange technique, and its gain properties were studied experimentally. The propagation loss of the fabricated waveguide was 0.6 dB/cm at 1.3 micrometers . Er3+ concentration of 1 X 1020 ions/cm3 was chosen so that no concentration quenching occurred. This was confirmed by measuring a fluorescence lifetime of 1.54 micrometers (8.4 ms). Gain of the fabricated waveguide was measured by using a Ti:sapphire laser at a wavelength of 977 nm and a laser diode of 1.530 micrometers producing pump and signal beams respectively. The signal wavelength used for the experiments was shorter than the emission peak, and the measured gain of the 1.8 cm waveguide was comparable to the total loss. However, the model which adopted experimental conditions showed that lasing is expected at the emission peak with a 3.6 cm long waveguide fabricated by current method. Calculations results showed that the 6.5 dB gain can be realized at 300 mW pump power with a 5.4 cm long waveguide, provided that mode overlap can be increased by 25% and propagation loss can be reduced by 50%. No significant upconversion effect was observed up to 1.1 X 106 W/cm2 pump intensity.
Novel multiple quantum well (MQW) optical modulators for use in time-division optical fiber interconnects are presented. A bit-error-rate analysis of a time-division receiver indicates high contrast ratio optical gates are required for high-speed interconnect applications. A high contrast MQW gate, consisting of a nonlinear asymmetric reflection modulator, suitable for use in optical time-division systems is presented which utilizes the GaAlInAs alloy lattice- matched to InP. This system is ideal for optical interconnect applications since MQW materials and devices are easily designed for operation in the optical fiber transmission windows of 1.3 and 1.5 micrometers . Utilizing asymmetric double quantum wells (ADQWs) as the nonlinear spacer for the asymmetric reflection modulator also is discussed. The recovery time of ADQWs can be tailored for interconnect applications by choosing the optimum width of the tunnel barrier. Electro-optic modulators which utilize real space transfer of electrons in ADQWs also are presented.
The progress in fabrication of rare-earth doped glass waveguides using two different techniques, ion exchange in a doped glass and sol-gel processing, is reported. A study of the effect of postbake on the coupling efficiency of the pump beam in silver ion-exchanged waveguides made in a commercially available neodymium-doped silicate glass is presented. Upconversion is reported for the first time in a silver ion-exchanged phosphate glass waveguide. A new ion-exchanged glass fabrication process in conjunction with rare-earth-doped sol-gel layers is proposed.
Multiple Quantum Well (MQW) materials and devices have been designed and demonstrated to have large optical nonlinearities which are suitable for use in ultrafast optical TDMA interconnects at 1.3 micrometers . The MQW materials consist of GaAlInAs wells and AlInAs barriers grown lattice-matched to a semi-insulating InP substrate by molecular beam epitaxy. The MQW samples exhibited large absorption changes at 1.3 micrometers due to bandfilling and exchange effects. The carrier saturation densities near the heavy-hole exciton peak were similar to those for GaAs/AlGaAs MQWs. The large optical nonlinearities near 1.3 micrometers were used to demonstrate an all-optical, high-contrast asymmetric reflection modulator suitable for performing all-optical time-division demultiplexing at low pump intensities. The modulator consists of an asymmetric Fabry-Perot etalon which utilizes a nonlinear MQW spacer. The modulator exhibited an on/off contrast ratio of greater than 1000:1 and an insertion loss of 2.2 dB at a pump intensity of 30 kW/cm2. The recovery of the modulator is shown to decay with a time-constant of 725 ps.
We found that laser pulses in the order of one nanosecond create significant through-thickness temperature gradients in an MO layer. Applying this effect to double-layered media, expansion of the laser power range for a writing process was demonstrated experimentally. These results imply that a combination of short and long pulses could provide a new approach to direct overwrite.
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