Highly ytterbium-doped bismuth-oxide-based fiber

Method for estimating the Stark splitting of rare-earth ions from the measured cross-section spectra

A method to estimate the Stark levels of the rare-earth ions doped in a laser medium from the measured emission and absorption cross-sections is proposed. The method is based on the McCumber theory, which can calculate the emission/absorption cross-sections from the given Stark levels. By fitting the calculated emission/absorption spectra to the measured ones through a numerical optimization process, the Stark levels of the RE ions can be determined. As examples, the Stark levels of the laser-emission-related manifolds of Er³⁺ and Yb³⁺ ions in a gain fiber and two doped glasses have been determined by the proposed method. The data were then used to analyze the temperature-dependent population of the Stark levels. This method avoids the difficulties in direct measurement of the Stark levels in a cryogenic temperature environment. It is important to the evaluation of the thermal load, distribution, and design of the thermal management system of high-power fiber lasers and amplifiers.

Violet-green excitation for NIR luminescence of Yb3+ ions in Bi2O3-B2O3-SiO2-Ga2O3 glasses

60Bi(2)O(3)-20B(2)O(3)-10SiO(2)-10Ga(2)O(3) glasses doped with 1-9 mol% Yb(2)O(3) were prepared and investigated mainly on their violet-green excitation for the typical NIR emission of Yb(3+), generally excited in the NIR. Two violet excitation bands at 365 nm and 405 nm are related to Yb(2+) and Bi(3+). 465 nm excitation band and 480 nm absorption band in the blue-green are assigned to Bi(0) metal nanoparticles/grains. Yb-content-dependence of the excitation and absorption means that Bi(0) is the reduced product of Bi(3+), but greatly competed by the redox reaction of Yb(2+) ↔ Yb(3+). It is proved that the violet-green excitations result in the NIR emission of Yb(3+). On the energy transfer, the virtual level of Yb(3+)-Yb(3+) as well as Bi(0) dimers probably plays an important role. An effective and controllable way is suggested to achieve nano-optical applications by Bi(0) metal nanoparticles/grains and Yb(3+).

Compositional dependence of room-temperature Stark splitting of Yb³⁺ in several popular glass systems

The room-temperature Stark splitting properties of Yb3+ are practical and valuable for lasers because the working temperature of the gain media intensively increases with the laser output. In this Letter, the room-temperature Stark splitting properties of Yb3+ in several popular laser glasses are contrastively studied. Yb3+-doped germanate (Ge), borate (B), silicate (Si), bismuthate (Bi), tellurite (Te), and fluorophosphate (FP) glasses exhibit large Stark splitting and tend to operate close to the quasi-four-level scheme, whereas phosphate (P) glass shows the weakest Stark splitting and tends to operate close to the quasi-three-level one. Due to the low thermal conductivity of the glass matrix, Yb3+-doped P glass suffers from serious thermal problems and is difficult to achieve high laser output. The Stark splitting is also used to estimate the crystal-field strength of glass hosts and local Yb3+ ligand asymmetry degree. The results show that P glass shows weaker crystal-field effect and lower Yb3+ ligand asymmetry than Ge, Si, and B glasses.

20 GHz spacing multi-wavelength generation of Brillouin-Raman fiber laser in a hybrid linear cavity

We demonstrate a tunable multi-wavelength Brillouin-Raman fiber laser with 20 GHz wavelength spacing. The setup is arranged in a linear cavity by employing 7.2 and 11 km dispersion compensating fibers (DCF) in addition to a 30 cm Bismuth-oxide erbium doped fiber. In this experiment, for the purpose of increasing the Stokes lines, it is necessary to optimize Raman pump power and Brillouin pump power together with its corresponding wavelengths. At the specific Brillouin pump wavelength, it is found that the longer length of 11 km DCF with optimized parameters results in larger number of Stokes combs and optical signal to noise ratios (OSNRs). In this case, a total of 195 Brillouin Stokes combs are produced across 28 nm bandwidth at Brillouin pump power of -2 dBm and Raman pump power of 1000 mW. In addition, all Brillouin Stokes signals exhibit an average OSNR of 26 dB.

Compact, highly efficient ytterbium doped bismuthate glass waveguide laser

Laser slope efficiencies close to the quantum defect limit and in excess of 78% have been obtained from an ultrafast laser inscribed buried channel waveguide fabricated in a ytterbium-doped bismuthate glass. The simultaneous achievement of low propagation losses and preservation of the fluorescence properties of ytterbium ions is the basis of the outstanding laser performance.