Optical amplification at 1534 nm in erbium-doped zirconia waveguides

Ross Schermer; William Berglund; Carol Ford; Randy Ramberg; Anand Gopinath

doi:10.1109/JQE.2002.806163

Optical amplification at 1534 nm in erbium-doped zirconia waveguides

Ross Schermer, William Berglund, Carol Ford, Randy Ramberg, Anand Gopinath

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

28 Scopus citations

Abstract

We have developed planar waveguides with net gain in erbium-doped zirconia. Ion-beam sputtering was used to deposit amorphous high-refractive-index zirconia films, which were fabricated into single-mode waveguides. By adjusting oxygen flow rates while sputtering, and annealing the films after deposition, waveguide losses were reduced to 0.45 dB/cm at 1534 nm. Erbium in the zirconia, added by co-sputtering, had a wide, 54-nm full-width at half maximum emission band centered at 1538 nm, which offers potential advantages for wideband amplification in wavelength division multiplexing systems. When pumped with 36 mW at 980 nm, a 6.5 cm long, 8.8 × 10¹⁹ cm^-3 doped waveguide produced 2.95 dB of optical amplification at 1534 nm. This was enough to overcome the waveguide loss and produce a small amount of net gain. With a higher pump power, substantial net gain appeared to be possible. These results show that wide-bandwidth erbium-doped optical amplifiers should be possible in zirconia.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	154-159
Number of pages	6
Journal	IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics
Volume	39
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/JQE.2002.806163
State	Published - Jan 2003

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Manuscript received March 22, 2002; revised September 26, 2002. This work was supported in part by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency and by the Army Research Laboratory. R. Schermer, W. Berglund, and A. Gopinath are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA (e-mail: schermer@ece.umn.edu). C. Ford and R. Ramberg are with Honeywell, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JQE.2002.806163

Keywords

Erbium
Optical amplifiers
Optical films
Optical materials
Optical planar waveguides
Zirconium compounds

Access

10.1109/JQE.2002.806163

OpenUrl availability

Full text

Cite this

@article{838040f2e2fb478583582468ae6b844f,

title = "Optical amplification at 1534 nm in erbium-doped zirconia waveguides",

abstract = "We have developed planar waveguides with net gain in erbium-doped zirconia. Ion-beam sputtering was used to deposit amorphous high-refractive-index zirconia films, which were fabricated into single-mode waveguides. By adjusting oxygen flow rates while sputtering, and annealing the films after deposition, waveguide losses were reduced to 0.45 dB/cm at 1534 nm. Erbium in the zirconia, added by co-sputtering, had a wide, 54-nm full-width at half maximum emission band centered at 1538 nm, which offers potential advantages for wideband amplification in wavelength division multiplexing systems. When pumped with 36 mW at 980 nm, a 6.5 cm long, 8.8 × 1019 cm-3 doped waveguide produced 2.95 dB of optical amplification at 1534 nm. This was enough to overcome the waveguide loss and produce a small amount of net gain. With a higher pump power, substantial net gain appeared to be possible. These results show that wide-bandwidth erbium-doped optical amplifiers should be possible in zirconia.",

keywords = "Erbium, Optical amplifiers, Optical films, Optical materials, Optical planar waveguides, Zirconium compounds",

author = "Ross Schermer and William Berglund and Carol Ford and Randy Ramberg and Anand Gopinath",

note = "Funding Information: Manuscript received March 22, 2002; revised September 26, 2002. This work was supported in part by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency and by the Army Research Laboratory. R. Schermer, W. Berglund, and A. Gopinath are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA (e-mail: schermer@ece.umn.edu). C. Ford and R. Ramberg are with Honeywell, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JQE.2002.806163",

year = "2003",

month = jan,

doi = "10.1109/JQE.2002.806163",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "39",

pages = "154--159",

journal = "IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics",

issn = "0018-9197",

publisher = "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Optical amplification at 1534 nm in erbium-doped zirconia waveguides

AU - Schermer, Ross

AU - Berglund, William

AU - Ford, Carol

AU - Ramberg, Randy

AU - Gopinath, Anand

N1 - Funding Information: Manuscript received March 22, 2002; revised September 26, 2002. This work was supported in part by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency and by the Army Research Laboratory. R. Schermer, W. Berglund, and A. Gopinath are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA (e-mail: schermer@ece.umn.edu). C. Ford and R. Ramberg are with Honeywell, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JQE.2002.806163

PY - 2003/1

Y1 - 2003/1

N2 - We have developed planar waveguides with net gain in erbium-doped zirconia. Ion-beam sputtering was used to deposit amorphous high-refractive-index zirconia films, which were fabricated into single-mode waveguides. By adjusting oxygen flow rates while sputtering, and annealing the films after deposition, waveguide losses were reduced to 0.45 dB/cm at 1534 nm. Erbium in the zirconia, added by co-sputtering, had a wide, 54-nm full-width at half maximum emission band centered at 1538 nm, which offers potential advantages for wideband amplification in wavelength division multiplexing systems. When pumped with 36 mW at 980 nm, a 6.5 cm long, 8.8 × 1019 cm-3 doped waveguide produced 2.95 dB of optical amplification at 1534 nm. This was enough to overcome the waveguide loss and produce a small amount of net gain. With a higher pump power, substantial net gain appeared to be possible. These results show that wide-bandwidth erbium-doped optical amplifiers should be possible in zirconia.

AB - We have developed planar waveguides with net gain in erbium-doped zirconia. Ion-beam sputtering was used to deposit amorphous high-refractive-index zirconia films, which were fabricated into single-mode waveguides. By adjusting oxygen flow rates while sputtering, and annealing the films after deposition, waveguide losses were reduced to 0.45 dB/cm at 1534 nm. Erbium in the zirconia, added by co-sputtering, had a wide, 54-nm full-width at half maximum emission band centered at 1538 nm, which offers potential advantages for wideband amplification in wavelength division multiplexing systems. When pumped with 36 mW at 980 nm, a 6.5 cm long, 8.8 × 1019 cm-3 doped waveguide produced 2.95 dB of optical amplification at 1534 nm. This was enough to overcome the waveguide loss and produce a small amount of net gain. With a higher pump power, substantial net gain appeared to be possible. These results show that wide-bandwidth erbium-doped optical amplifiers should be possible in zirconia.

KW - Erbium

KW - Optical amplifiers

KW - Optical films

KW - Optical materials

KW - Optical planar waveguides

KW - Zirconium compounds

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0037252993&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0037252993&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1109/JQE.2002.806163

DO - 10.1109/JQE.2002.806163

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:0037252993

SN - 0018-9197

VL - 39

SP - 154

EP - 159

JO - IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics

JF - IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics

IS - 1

ER -

Optical amplification at 1534 nm in erbium-doped zirconia waveguides

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access

OpenUrl availability

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this