Fiber-to-Fiber Optical Gain of Polymer-Based Amplifier with Self-Written Active Waveguide

Abstract

This paper describes optical amplification properties of an organic dye-doped polymer waveguide fabricated with a technique of self-written active (SWA) waveguide. The SWA waveguide has a fiber-type channel waveguide structure, which can be easily fabricated by laser light irradiation to a mixture of photopolymerizable monomer and the organic dye. In a 1.17-mm-long SWA waveguide under 610-nm optical pumping, the fiber-to-fiber optical gain of 20.3 dB was obtained for a 780-nm input light. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the optical coupling between the channel gain waveguide and the input and output fiber ports could be minimized by using the SWA waveguide technique. The gain bandwidth was found to be as large as 50 THz (690–785 nm).