L-BAND AMPLIFICATION AND MULTI-WAVELENGTH LASING WITH BISMUTH-BASED ERBIUM DOPED FIBER

Abstract

Bismuth-based EDF (Bi-EDF) is comprehensively studied as an alternative medium for optical amplification. The bismuth glass host provides the opportunity to be doped heavily with erbium ions to allow a compact optical amplifier design. The gain spectrum of the Bi- EDF amplifier has a measured amplification bandwidth of 80 nm with a quantum conversion efficiency of 20% obtained using 1480 nm pumping and 215 cm long of doped fiber. A multi-wavelength laser comb is also demonstrated using a four-wave mixing effect in a backward pumped Bi-EDF. The laser generates more than 10 lines of optical comb with a line spacing of approximately 0.41 nm at 1615.5 nm region using 146 mW of 1480 nm pump power.