Fabrication and application of zirconia-erbium doped fibers

In this work, the fabrication of a Zirconia-Erbium co-Doped Fiber (Zr-EDF) and its application in the generation of non-linear effects as well as use in a compact pulsed fiber laser system is described. The Zr-EDF is fabricated by the Modified Chemical Vapor Deposition (MCVD) technique in combination with solution doping to incorporate the glass modifiers and nucleating agent. The resulting preforms are annealed and drawn into fiber strands with a 125.0 +/- 0.5 mu m diameter. Two Zr-EDFs, ZEr-A and ZEr-B, are fabricated with erbium ion concentrations of 2800 and 3888 ppm/wt and absorption rates of 14.5 and 18.3 dB/m at 980 nm respectively. Due to its higher erbium dopant concentration, a 4 m long ZEr-B is used to demonstrate the generation of the Four-Wave-Mixing (FWM) effect in the Zr-EDF. The measured FWM power levels agree well with theoretical predictions, giving a maximum FWM power - 45 dBm between 1558 nm to 1565 nm, and the generated sidebands are as predicted. The non-linear coefficient of ZEr-B is measured to be 14 W(-1)km(-1), with chromatic and slope dispersion values of 28.45 ps/nm. km and 3.63 ps/nm(2).km respectively. The ZEr-B is also used together with a graphene based saturable absorber to create a compact, passively Q-switched fiber laser. Short pulses with a pulse width of 8.8 mu s and repetition rate of 9.15 kHz are generated at a pump power of 121.8 mW, with a maximum average output power of 161.35 mu W and maximum pulse energy value of 17.64 nJ. The fabricated Zr-EDF has many potential applications in multi-wavelength generation as well as in the development of compact, pulsed laser sources. (C)2012 Optical Society of Americ