Optical spectroscopy of rare earth ions in glasses

The relationships between host glass composition and optical properties of rare earth ions were studied by means of absorption and emission spectroscopy. Eu³⁺ and Tb³⁺ were found to be appropriate indicator ions for determining the properties of the local environment around rare earth ions. Er³⁺ and Nd³⁺ ions are widely used in lasers and amplifiers. The knowledge of the compositional influence on the spectroscopic parameters of rare earth ions enabled the modeling of the emission properties of important Er³⁺ and Nd³⁺ transitions in order to figure out the Optimum host glasses. Fluoride phosphate and phosphate glasses are attractive candidates for lasers and amplifiers. In these glasses, the degree of covalency between the rare earth ions and surrounding ligands mainly affects the spectroscopic parameters of rare earth ions such as Judd-Ofelt parameters and electron-phonon coupling strength. The increase of the electron-phonon coupling strength with the phosphate content is responsible for the decrease of the Er³⁺ emission intensity at 540 nm. Otherwise, it increases the Er³⁺ emission intensity at 1.5 µm in the fluoride phosphate glasses. The lower microparameters of Nd³⁺ cross relaxation in phosphate glasses cause the higher lifetimes of the Nd³⁺ ⁴F₃/₂ laser State at higher Nd³⁺ concentrations with respect to fluoride phosphate glasses. The energy transfer to OH groups in phosphate glasses decreases the hfetime and emission intensity of the laser State of both Er³⁺ and Nd³⁺ ions

Determination of the OH content of glasses

The most widely used method for determination of the OH content of glasses is the IR spectroscopy. The absorption bands in the range of 2500 to 4000 cm⁻¹ are due to the fundamental stretching vibrations of OH groups having different degrees of association. The calibration of the absorption coefficient, α, of an OH band requires the determination of the absolute OH content of some samples by another method than IR spectroscopy. Comparing water outgassing method with ¹H NMR spectroscopy, a large difference in the OH content was observed. Therefore, it is more appropriate to use solely the absorption coefficient as a relative measure of the true OH content. If certain requirements are met, the quantitative analysis of the absorption coefficient of different glass samples is justified

Index matching between passive and active tellurite glasses for use in microstructured fiber lasers: Erbium doped lanthanum-tellurite glass

Active and passive variants of La-containing tellurite glasses have been developed with matched refractive indices. The consequences of adding lanthanum to the glass was studied through measurements of the crystallization stability, glass viscosity and the loss of unstructured fibers. Doping the glass with erbium allowed for any spectroscopic changes to be observed through measurements of the absorption and energy level lifetimes. The fluorescence emission spectra were measured at 1.5 microm and, to the best of our knowledge, for the first time in tellurite glass at 2.7 microm.Michael R. Oermann, Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem, Yahua Li, Tze-Cheung Foo, and Tanya M. Monrohttp://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=oe-17-18-1557

Analysis of 3D-printed metal for rapid-prototyped reflective terahertz optics

We explore the potential of 3D metal printing to realize complex conductive terahertz devices. Factors impacting performance such as printing resolution, surface roughness, oxidation, and material loss are investigated via analytical, numerical, and experimental approaches. The high degree of control offered by a 3D-printed topology is exploited to realize a zone plate operating at 530 GHz. Reflection efficiency at this frequency is found to be over 90%. The high-performance of this preliminary device suggest that 3D metal printing can play a strong role in guided-wave and general beam control devices in the terahertz range.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Optics Expres

Small core optical waveguides are more nonlinear than expected: experimental confirmation

For the first time, to our knowledge, we demonstrate the experimental confirmation of a new vectorially based expression of the effective nonlinear coefficient γ in bismuth suspended core fibers with core diameters of around 500 nm. The new expression predicts a significantly higher value of γ than what is expected based on the standard expression. We confirm that there is a distinguishable difference between the standard and our new vectorially based γ’s, owing to the high index glass and subwavelength dimension of this fiber, and we show that the experimental result of γ matches the new expression within the experimental error.Shahraam Afshar V., Wen Qi Zhang, Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem, and Tanya M. Monr

Extruded suspended core fibers from lanthanum-aluminum-silicate glass

We report the use of the extrusion technique at highest temperatures to date (975 °C-1000 °C) for the fabrication of suspended core fibers (SCFs) from glass with molar composition 65 SiO2-20 Al2O3-15 La2O3 (SAL65). Through adjusting die design and fabrication conditions, extruded preforms for fibers with two different core sizes (1.2 µm and 3.1 µm) were successfully produced. Cross-sectional microstructure and material loss of these fibers highlight the potential of the extrusion technique for fabrication of microstructured optical fibers from glasses with high softening temperature and thus high thermal and mechanical stability. © 2020. All rights reserved

Driving down the Detection Limit in Microstructured Fiber-Based Chemical Dip Sensors

We present improvements to fluorescence sensing in soft-glass microstructured optical fibers that result in significantly improved sensitivity relative to previously published results. Concentrations of CdSe quantum dots down to 10 pM levels have been demonstrated. We show that the primary limitation to the sensitivity of these systems is the intrinsic fluorescence of the glass itself

Controlled formation of gold nanoparticles with tunable plasmonic properties in tellurite glass

Silicate glasses with metallic nanoparticles (NPs) have been of intense interest in art, science and technology as the plasmonic properties of these NPs equip glass with light modulation capability. The so-called striking technique has enabled precise control of the in situ formation of metallic NPs in silicate glasses for applications from coloured glasses to photonic devices. Since tellurite glasses exhibit the unique combination of comparably easy fabrication, low phonon energy, wide transmission window and high solubility of luminescent rare earth ions, there has been a significant amount of work over the past two decades to adapt the striking technique to form gold or silver NPs in tellurite glasses. Despite this effort, the striking technique has remained insufficient for tellurite glasses to form metal NPs suitable for photonic applications. Here, we first uncover the challenges of the traditional striking technique to create gold NPs in tellurite glass. Then, we demonstrate precise control of the size and concentration of gold NPs in tellurite glass by developing new approaches to both steps of the striking technique: a controlled gold crucible corrosion technique to incorporate gold ions in tellurite glass and a glass powder reheating technique to subsequently transform the gold ions to gold NPs. Using the Mie theory, the size, size distribution and concentration of the gold NPs formed in tellurite glass are determined from the plasmonic properties of the NPs. This fundamental research provides guidance for designing and manipulating the plasmonic properties in tellurite glass for photonics research and applications

Suspended nanowires: fabrication, design and characterization of fibers with nanoscale cores

We report a new approach for the fabrication of nanowires: the direct drawing of optical fibers with air suspended nanoscale cores. The fibers were made from lead silicate glass using the extrusion technique for preform and jacket tube fabrication. Fibers with core diameters in the range of 420-720 nm and practical outer diameters of 110-200 microm were produced, the smallest core sizes produced to date within optical fibers without tapering. We explored the impact of the core size on the effective mode area and propagation loss of these suspended nanowires relative to circular nanowires reported to date. As for circular nanowires, the propagation loss of these suspended nanowires is dominated by surface roughness induced scattering