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Bismuth-doped Fiber Laser at 1.

16 m
S. Yoo, M. P. Kalita, J. Sahu, J. Nilsson, and D. Payne
Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, England
Phone +44 23 80593172, Fax +44 23 80593149,
Email :sey@orc.soton.ac.uk

Abstract: We used a bismuth-doped fiber with high pump absorption, 1.2 dB/m, to make a short
(25 m) Bi-fiber laser at 1.16 m with 10% efficiency. We discuss the influence of host glass and
unsaturable absorption.
2008 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (060.3510) Lasers, fiber; (160.2290) Fiber materials

1. Introduction
Bismuth (Bi) doped silicate glasses emit in a wavelength region, 1.1 - 1.3 m, [1] which overlaps with the low loss
window of silica fiber and which is not covered by rare-earth doped silicate fiber lasers and amplifiers. This makes
Bi-doped fibers very attractive candidates for amplifiers and lasers in this wavelength range. Applications include
amplifiers in the 1.3 m telecom window and laser guide stars (following frequency doubling). The first Bi-doped
fiber lasers were made in silica and operated at 1.15 1.21 m when pumped at 1.07 m [2,3]. A ~ 80 m long Bi
fiber was used due to a low pump absorption of 0.3 dB/m. Another experiment on a Bi fiber laser, which utilized
similarly low Bi concentration, also used an 80 m long fiber [4]. For reasons such as background loss and
nonlinearities, shorter fibers are generally preferred, but it appears as if concentration quenching even at relatively
low Bi-concentrations has prevented progress towards shorter fiber. Indeed, 0.005% of Bi by wt corresponding to ~
0.3 dB/m of small signal absorption at 1070 nm was set as an upper limit for Bi laser action [4]. There are possibly
two challenges to increasing the Bi concentration. First, the desired infrared luminescence is only achievable when
the Bi ions sit in proper site together with Al [1]. Hence, increasing the Bi concentration beyond what the number of
appropriate sites permit may cause only unsaturable absorption, or at best, have no effect. Second, as the lasing
wavelength is located in the tail of the pump absorption band, high Bi concentration gives rise to additional signal
loss. Depending on the excited-state lifetime, this can lead to high thresholds in long devices of high concentration.
Despite those challenges, it is imperative to develop efficient high Bi concentration fiber for short fiber laser
operation to avoid unwanted nonlinear effects and for cladding pumped Bi fiber lasers.
Here we report highly Bi-doped fibers operating as lasers at 1.16 m with 25 m long fibers at room temperature.
We present fiber and laser characteristics, and discuss the impact of host materials and unsaturable absorption.
2. Experiments and results
A set of Bi-doped fiber preforms with Ge:Al:SiO2 core composition was fabricated by MCVD and solution doping.
The preforms were drawn into fibers with 125 m outer diameter. The fibers are listed in Table 1. Among them, the
most efficient Bi fiber (Fiber 1) has 1.2 dB/m of small signal absorption at 1.08 m which is four times larger than
previously reported fibers.
Table 1. Characteristics of highly Bi-doped fibers
Core
Abs. at Abs. at Background Core
Est. Ge
Est. Al
Laser
Unsaturable
composition 1.08 m 1.16 m loss at 1285
NA
content
content efficiency loss (dB/m)
(%)
(dB/m) (dB/m) nm (dB/km) (peak) (mol %) (mol %)
Fiber 1 Al:Ge:SiO2
1.2
0.3
40
0.18
0.6
1.2
10
0.3
Fiber 2 Al:Ge:SiO2
1.7
0.5
60
0.16
0.4
1.2
<1
1.1
Fiber 3 Al:Ge:SiO2
3.5
1.3
100
0.1
< 0.1
1.8
No lasing
2.6
The Bi fibers were tested in a laser configuration (Fig. 1). A 3 W Yb-doped fiber laser (GTWave) from SPI
Laser was used as a pump source. The Bi fiber was spliced to one of the WDM ports (Fig. 1). A linear 4% 100%
reflecting cavity was formed by a perpendicularly cleaved fiber facet in the signal output port of the WDM and a
high-reflecting broadband mirror butted to the fiber in the other end of the cavity. As the WDM was not perfect, we
had 20% signal output in backward direction into the pump source. The fiber length was varied from 50 to 20 m to
maximize the signal output power.
The laser characteristics are shown in Fig. 2(a). We attained 10% of slope efficiency with respect to launched
pump power at 1.16 m with a 25 m long fiber. It should be noted that it is the shortest Bi fiber laser reported so far.
Fiber

The threshold power was 200 mW of launched pump power and the laser did not pulse. The 10% slope efficiency
compares well to other, 80 m long, Bi fiber lasers at these low pump powers [2]. It is worth noting that this short
fiber substantially increases the Raman limit up to 2 kW, which is important for pulsed operation. Figure 2(b) shows
a typical spectrum of our 1.16 m laser, which was taken by an OSA with 1 nm resolution.

Fig 1. Experimental arrangement for Bi-doped fiber laser.

Fig 2. Laser characteristics of 25 m high Bi concentration fiber laser.

As listed in Table 1, we modified the core composition to investigate the impact of host material. It is well
known that Al has been essential for Bi luminescence around 1.1 m [1]. However, in addition to that, considering
the laser efficiencies, our results seem to indicate that Ge is another key component to enhance the Bi emission.
When we reduce the amount of Ge as in Fiber 2, the efficiency became less than 1% in a ring cavity configuration
with 65% output coupling. The fiber did not lase with the 4% 100% cavity. By reducing the Ge amount further in
Fiber 3, the fiber failed to lase even with the ring cavity. These results are in good agreement with [5].
Unsaturable absorption of three fibers was measured at 1.08 m and the results are listed in Table 1. The loss is
substantial. The poor efficiency of fibers 2 and 3 is related to, and may indeed be caused by a high unsaturable
absorption.
The influence of host composition on the Bi luminescence was further investigated by adding phosphorous. The
emission band substantially changed. The peak moved from 1.1 m in the Ge:Al:SiO2 host to around 1.25 m when
pumped at 910, 977, and 1060 nm.
3. Conclusion
We have demonstrated a highly Bi-doped fiber laser with 25 m fiber. The small signal absorption at 1.08 m was
1.2 dB/m of which the unsaturable absorption was ~25 %. The slope efficiency was 10% which is comparable to
that of low Bi concentration fiber lasers at low pump powers. The presence of Ge as well as Al seems important in
boosting Bi emission. The laser efficiency was impaired when the unsaturable absorption was large.
4. References
[1] Y. Fujimoto and M. Nakatsuka, Infrared luminescence from Bismuth-doped silicate glass, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 40, L279-L281 (2001).
[2] E. M. Dianov, V. V. Dvoryn, V. M. Mashinsky, A. A. Umnikov, M. V. Yashkov, and A. N. Guryanov, CW bismuth fiber laser, Quantum
Electron. 35, 1083-1084 (2005).
[3] E. M. Dianov, A. V. Shubin, M. A. Melkumov, O. I. Medvedkov, and I. A. Bufetov, High-power cw bismuth-fiber lasers, JOSA B 24,
1749-1755 (2007).
[4] A. B. Rulkov, A. A. Ferin, S. V. Popov, J. R. Taylor, I. Razdobreev, L. Bigot, and G. Bouwmans, Narrow-line, 1178 nm CW bismuth-doped
fiber laser with 6.4 W output for direct frequency doubling, Opt. Express 15, 5473-5476 (2007).
[5] Y. Fujimoto, Y. Hirata, Y. Kuwada, T. Sato, and M. Nakatsuka, Effect of GeO2 additive on fluorescence intensity enhancement in bismuthdoped silica glass, J. Mater. Res. 22, 565-568 (2007).

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