980nm pumped erbium doped tellurium oxide planar rib waveguide laser and amplifier with gain in S, C and L band

A thin film based erbium doped tellurium oxide (TeO₂) waveguide amplifier producing gain from 1500nm to 1640nm when pumped at 980nm is demonstrated. At measured internal gains exceeding 14dB lasing due to end facet reflection set in producing the first tellurite waveguide laser. High gains were observed despite significant upconversion, whose impact appears to be mitigated to some extent by residual OH contamination. The device displayed no photosensitive effects from either the high pumping intensities used or the intracavity intensity at 1550nm.This work was funded by the Australian Research Council mainly via Discovery Project DP0987056 and partly through the Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) CE110001018