Enhanced CW Lasing and Q‐Switched Pulse Generation Enabled by Tm³⁺‐Doped Glass Ceramic Fibers

Abstract

Fiber lasers, owing to the high beam quality and super robustness, are widely used in fields from optical communications, fiber sensing, biomedicine to material processing. The use of glass fibers as the gain medium has, however, posed a strong obstacle for improving efficiency and, especially, achieving efficient lasing action in the mid‐infrared (MIR) region, because of the relatively large nonradiative energy loss. Here, the fabrication of a Tm3+‐doped tellurate glass‐ceramic (GC) fiber is demonstrated, which enables enhanced lasing action at ≈2 µm. Compared with the as‐prepared fiber, the optical conversion efficiency of GC fiber is increased from 8.8% to 14.1%. The microstructure and spectral characterization analyses suggest that the improvement of the laser performance in GC fiber is induced by the significant change of the local environment surrounding Tm3+ ions due to the formation of nanocrystals within the glass fibers. Moreover, the developed GC fiber also enables Q‐switched pulsed laser output at ≈2 µm with a pulse energy of 3.2 J and pulse width of 4.1 ns. The results demonstrated here may have strong implications in the development of MIR fiber lasers and the applications of GC fibers in MIR photonics.

Tunable luminescence in Pr3+ single-doped oxyfluoride glass ceramic and fibers

“…The mean particle size can be estimated to be about 5, 13.4, 21.4, and 27.2 nm for the 0.1 mol% Pr 3+ -doped GCs heat-treated at 490, 500, 510, and 520 °C for 2 h, respectively, through the Scherrer's equation. 37 To investigate the microstructure information in the glass network, the Raman spectra of the PG and GC samples were measured (Fig. 3b).…”

Approaches to Preceramic Polymer Fiber Fabrication and On-Demand Applications

“…Kang et al [124] recently demonstrated the fabrication of a Tm 3+ -doped tellurate glass-ceramic (GC) fiber, enabling enhanced lasing action at ≈2 µm. Compared to asprepared fibers, the optical conversion efficiency of the GC fiber was increased by 8.8-14.1%.…”

Highly thermostable fluoride nanocrystal-in-glass composites (NGCs) for mid-infrared emission

“…1–7 In recent years, fiber-based lighting sources are considered promising candidates for coherent MIR emission due to their unique advantages including high-power output, high beam quality, superior heat dissipation, and robust and compact configuration. 8–11 In a typical rare-earth ions (RE 3+ )-doped glass fiber, the key enabling efficient MIR emission relies on a glass with low-phonon energy. 12,13 Although oxide-based glasses are considered primary coherent light sources for near-infrared (NIR) laser generation, it is easier for their phonons with higher maximum energy to bridge the small band gap of MIR, leading to a significant non-radiative decay through multiphonon relaxation.…”