Active optical fibres
Active optical fibres
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 was flash-pumped in the form of an optical fibre, a configuration which was used to overcome the difficulties of obtaining high-quality glass in bulk form. Apart from a report 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 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, polarisers, filters) were available which allowed construction of complex, all-fibre ring and Fabry-Perot resonators' 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) 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 recently resulted in several commercial products appearing, a time-lag of only three years after the first research announcement. The fibre laser, on the other hand, is only now beginning to receive widespread attention as a possible contender for a well-controlled, stable light source for telecommunications, despite its obvious advantages of high-power pulsed operation, single-frequency capability, ease of access to the resonator and compatibility with communications fibre.
Payne, D.N.
4f592b24-707f-456e-b2c6-8a6f750e296d
1990
Payne, D.N.
4f592b24-707f-456e-b2c6-8a6f750e296d
Payne, D.N.
(1990)
Active optical fibres.
Opt'90: 2nd International Conference on Optoelectronics, Japan, Japan.
07 - 09 Nov 1990.
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 was flash-pumped in the form of an optical fibre, a configuration which was used to overcome the difficulties of obtaining high-quality glass in bulk form. Apart from a report 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 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, polarisers, filters) were available which allowed construction of complex, all-fibre ring and Fabry-Perot resonators' 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) 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 recently resulted in several commercial products appearing, a time-lag of only three years after the first research announcement. The fibre laser, on the other hand, is only now beginning to receive widespread attention as a possible contender for a well-controlled, stable light source for telecommunications, despite its obvious advantages of high-power pulsed operation, single-frequency capability, ease of access to the resonator and compatibility with communications fibre.
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Published date: 1990
Venue - Dates:
Opt'90: 2nd International Conference on Optoelectronics, Japan, Japan, 1990-11-07 - 1990-11-09
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Local EPrints ID: 77463
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/77463
PURE UUID: 8c5100ab-af55-4920-8e9c-269c2abd7e4f
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Date deposited: 11 Mar 2010
Last modified: 13 Mar 2024 23:52
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