Abstract
Splicing fluoride glass fibers and silica fibers is a critical point for manufacturing all fibered laser modules. As these materials are extremely different, various problems must be considered: thermal, expansion, mechanical, chemical. Reliability and power handling make priority concerns. We report splices made on a 200/220 multimode silica fiber and a double clad 15/250/290 ZBLAN fiber. Splices are proof tested at 300 g tensile strength. No damage is observed after thermal cycling from -30 °C to 85 °C, at 40 % RH during 24 hours. Typical optical splice loss is about 0.2 dB. They withstand 220 W input power at 976 nm without any damage and drastic temperature increasing.
Highlights
Fluoride glass fibers are used for the fabrication of various fiber lasers operating in the mid infrared spectrum (> 2 μm) [1,2,3,4,5] and for supercontinuum generation from 1 to 5 μm [6,7]
The industrial manufacturing of such laser sources requires splicing silica fibers and fluorides fibers to handle the injection of the pump laser
A last problem is the control of the chemical processes at the surface of fluoride fibers
Summary
Fluoride glass fibers are used for the fabrication of various fiber lasers operating in the mid infrared spectrum (> 2 μm) [1,2,3,4,5] and for supercontinuum generation from 1 to 5 μm [6,7]. The industrial manufacturing of such laser sources requires splicing silica fibers and fluorides fibers to handle the injection of the pump laser. It must be emphasized that the characteristic temperatures of both glasses are extremely different: softening temperature of ZBLAN is below 300 °C while it is above 1000 °C for vitreous silica. At this temperature fluoride glass decomposes and releases gaseous species. Silica reacts with fluoride glass melts to produce gaseous silicon tetrafluoride SiF4 according to the chemical equation: SiO2 + 4 F- => SiF4 + 2 O=. We report the new developments of splices between fluoride glass fibers and silica fibers exhibiting good mechanical and optical performances
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