Electro-optical Kerr constant measurement of tellurite and chalcogenide glasses in the visible at 633nm and in the infrared at 3.39μm

Abstract

We report the implementation of an optical bench to measure the electro-optical Kerr constant in bulk infrared glasses, especially for two different infrared glass families: tellurites and chalcogenides. We give a detailed description of the setup, including the specially designed Kerr cell. The samples preparation and the setup validation with a reference material are reported. Finally, we measure the Kerr constant of two compositions that we use as core glasses for the realization of hybrid fibers: 70 TeO2 – 25 ZnO – 05 La2O3 (mol. %) tellurite glass at 633 nm and 20 Ge – 60 Se – 20 Te (mol. %) chalcogenide glass at 3.39 μm. To our knowledge, this is the first measurement of electro-optical Kerr constant for a chalcogenide glass.