<title>Graded index polymer waveguide amplifier working at lambda=1.06um</title>

Abstract

During the last five years, intense research on single-mode rare-earth doped fiber lasers and amplifiers hasled to the development of a range of active devices, in particular the Er'-doped fiber amplifiers withapplication for optical telecommunications at 1.5 to 1.6 j.tm. Integrated optics may offer an alternative wayof realizing such single-mode waveguide active devices with potential advantages over fibers, such as amore compact size, the feasibility of Q-switching, frequency doubling and the possibility of processingmany devices on a single substrate. It also offers possibilities for new monolithic laser or amplifiercomponents combining the medium's gain and the large range of integrated optical functions alreadydemonstrated. It may include coupled cavity, Q-switched, mode-locked or frequency doubled lasers andamplified optical integrated circuits with no insertion losses. The possibility of ion-doping of standardintegrated-optic waveguides has recently allowed the demonstration of Nd- and Er-doped single-modechannel waveguide lasers in single crystal Ti:LiNbO3 waveguides 1113] and various glass waveguides [47]