Low threshold fiber taper coupled rare earth ion-doped chalcogenide microsphere laser**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61177087 and 61435009), the National Key Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2012CB722703), the Program for Innovative Research Team of Ningbo City, China (Grant No. 2009B21007) , the K. C. Wong Magna Fund in Ningbo University, the

Abstract

We report the applications of a low-cost and environmentally friendly chalcogenide glass, 75GeS2-15Ga2S3-10CsI, in building active microsphere laser oscillators. A silica fiber taper is used as the coupling mechanism. With an 808-nm laser diode as a pump source, we show that a high-Q (∼ 6×104) laser mode could be obtained from a 75-μm diameter microsphere that is coupled with a 1.77-μm waist-diameter fiber taper. The threshold of the incident pump power is 1.39 mW, which is considerably lower than those of previously reported free-space coupled chalcogenide microsphere lasers. We also note an apparent enhancement in laser power generated from this chalcogenide microsphere laser.