Application-Specific Optical Fibres Manufactured from Multicomponent Glasses.
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APPLICATION-SPECIFIC OPTICAL FIBRES MANUFACTURED FROM MULTICOMPONENT GLASSES. E.R. TAYLOR, D.J. TAYLOR, L. LI, M. TACHIBANA, J.E. TOWNSEND, J. WANG, P.J. WELLS, L. REEKIE, P.R. MORKEL AND D.N. PAYNE Optical Fibre Group, Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton S09 5NH, UK. ABSTRACT Special fibres have been fabricated to demonstrate the potential of using multicomponent glass materials for sensors, devices and fibre lasers. High nonlinearity and large Verdet constants are confirmed for lead-silicate glass fibres. Nonlinear effects such as second harmonic generation (SHG), third harmonic generation (THG), electro-optic (EO) Kerr effect and optical switching are observed for F7 core glass fibres. Compound glasses are investigated as host glasses for fibre lasers and amplifiers. An all glass cladding pumped Nd-doped fibre laser from compound glassses is characterized. INTRODUCTION Silica has been mostly used in special fibres because of its low loss transmission. However, some special fibres require short lengths for optimum performance. Among these are current sensors where the bandwidth is an important criterion, most nonlinear optical devices and rare-earth doped fibre lasers. Here, materials with properties optimized for short lengths of a few metres are favoured. These are typically multicomponent compound glasses. The composition of these glasses can be tailored to the application intended. By use of established glass melting, glass forming and fibre fabrication techniques, all optical devices can be made compatible with conventional monomode silica-based fibres. We have fabricated optical fibres from both commercially available and new component glass melts. Fibres with losses close to the intrinsic loss of the bulk glass precursors are obtainable using a rod-in-tube technique. The intrinsic loss is generally two orders of magnitude larger than silica. The objective of this presentation is to demonstrate the potential and practicality of using compound glass fibres for application in nonlinear devices, fibre sensors and fibre lasers. Lead oxide glasses exhibit a combination of high refraction and high dispersion owing to the high polarizability of lead in silicate glasses. The consequences are much higher third-order nonlinear coefficients and larger Verdet constants than silica. F-series and SF-series glasses are lead silicate glasses containing up to 65 wt% PbO. Fibres for nonlinear devices and sensors have been fabricated from these glasses and the results are presented here. In laser glasses where the host glass is doped with rareearth ions, the lasing properties of a fibre can be modified by changing the composition of the host glass. Multicomponent silicate, phosphate, borate and chloride glasses have been investigated as potential host glasses for fibre lasers and amplifiers. We compare our results with silica MCVD fibres. Furthermore, the rod-in-tube method of fabrication lends itself Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. Vol. 172. ©1990 Materials Research Society
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