Bismuth-doped optical fibers: a new active medium for NIR lasers and amplifiers

Abstract

It has recently been demonstrated that Bi-doped glass optical fibers are a promising active laser medium. In this paper the luminescence and absorption spectra of various types of Bi-doped optical fibers are presented. The exact nature of the near IR emitting bismuth centers is still unclear, so some hypotheses and recent experimental results on this subject are discussed. Then the paper reviews the recent results regarding the development of Bi-doped fiber lasers and optical amplifiers for the 1150 to 1550 nm spectral region. In conclusion some problems to be solved to get an efficient laser medium on the base of Bi-doped fibers are identified.