Active fibres and optical amplifiers
Active fibres and optical amplifiers
The incorporation of rare-earth ions into glass fibres to form fibre lasers and amplifiers is not a recent development. In fact the first glass laser ever demonstrated [1] was flash-pumped in the form of an optical fibre, a configuration that was used to overcome the difficulties of obtaining high-quality glass in bulk form. Apart from a report [2] in 1974 of laser operation in an Nd3+-doped silica multimode fibre, the idea of guided-wave glass lasers attracted little attention for the next 24 years. The idea resurfaced [3] in 1985 because both optical fibre and laser-diode technologies had advanced to a stage where low-loss, rare-earth-doped, single-mode fibres could be made and high-power semiconductor sources were available to pump them. In addition, low-cost fibre components (couplers, polarizers, filters) were available, which allowed construction of complex, all-fibre ring and Fabry-Perot resonators [4] to form a unique and powerful new fibre-laser technology. Even so, it was only the announcement in 1987 of a high-gain, erbium-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) [5] operating in the third telecommunications wavelength-window at 1.54µm that sparked widespread interest in rare-earth-doped fibres in the optical telecommunications community. From that moment, frenzied worldwide activity has brought numerous new fibre amplifier developments and in 1990 resulted in several commercial products appearing, a time-lag of only three years after the first research announcement.
92-835-0673-1
5.1-5.26
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
Payne, D.N.
4f592b24-707f-456e-b2c6-8a6f750e296d
1992
Payne, D.N.
4f592b24-707f-456e-b2c6-8a6f750e296d
Payne, D.N.
(1992)
Active fibres and optical amplifiers.
In Advances in Fibre-Optics Technology in Communication and for Guidance and Control.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
.
Record type:
Conference or Workshop Item
(Paper)
Abstract
The incorporation of rare-earth ions into glass fibres to form fibre lasers and amplifiers is not a recent development. In fact the first glass laser ever demonstrated [1] was flash-pumped in the form of an optical fibre, a configuration that was used to overcome the difficulties of obtaining high-quality glass in bulk form. Apart from a report [2] in 1974 of laser operation in an Nd3+-doped silica multimode fibre, the idea of guided-wave glass lasers attracted little attention for the next 24 years. The idea resurfaced [3] in 1985 because both optical fibre and laser-diode technologies had advanced to a stage where low-loss, rare-earth-doped, single-mode fibres could be made and high-power semiconductor sources were available to pump them. In addition, low-cost fibre components (couplers, polarizers, filters) were available, which allowed construction of complex, all-fibre ring and Fabry-Perot resonators [4] to form a unique and powerful new fibre-laser technology. Even so, it was only the announcement in 1987 of a high-gain, erbium-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) [5] operating in the third telecommunications wavelength-window at 1.54µm that sparked widespread interest in rare-earth-doped fibres in the optical telecommunications community. From that moment, frenzied worldwide activity has brought numerous new fibre amplifier developments and in 1990 resulted in several commercial products appearing, a time-lag of only three years after the first research announcement.
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Published date: 1992
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AGARD EPP/GCP Advances in Fibre-Optics Technology in Communication and for Guidance and Control NATO Series of Lectures, Rome, Italy, 1992-05-16 - 1992-05-28
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Local EPrints ID: 77356
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/77356
ISBN: 92-835-0673-1
PURE UUID: 29d0e912-edee-454b-890c-a64f56a6f608
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Date deposited: 11 Mar 2010
Last modified: 13 Mar 2024 23:49
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