Co-Doping Effect of Bismuth Ions on the Gain Characteristics of Er-Doped Silica Optical Fiber
Zexin Zheng, Xiangping Pan, Weizhu Ji, Yanhua Dong, Jianxiang Wen, Wei Chen, Sujuan Huang, Gang‐Ding Peng, Tingyun Wang
Abstract
By examining the spectral and amplification characteristics of Er-doped silica fiber (EDSF) and Bi/Er co-doped silica fiber (BEDSF), an active doped silica fiber with broadband- and flat-gain is investigated. Results show that the bandwidth of BEDSF with a gain greater than 20 dB is approximately 50 nm. Moreover, in the entire C-band, the gain of BEDSF exceeds 26 dB with a fluctuation range of approximately 2 dB. The excellent performance may mainly come from the role of bismuth ions. Further analysis demonstrates that the emission and gain cross-sections are enhanced, the bandwidth is broadened, and the flatness is also optimized by co-doping Bi ions. The fluorescence lifetime of Er3+ is lengthened by 1.82 ms, illustrating that there may exist energy transfer from Bi-related active centers to Er3+. The results indicate that the proposed BEDSF has significant potential application in optical fiber amplifiers, lasers, sensors, and so on.