Erbium doped tellurite photonic crystal optical fiber

In this work we present the fabrication of tellurite glass photonic crystal fiber doped with a very large erbium concentration. Tellurite glasses are important hosts for rare earth ions due to its very high solubility, which allows up to 10,000 ppm Er³⁺ concentrations. The photonic crystal optical fibers and tellurite glasses can be, therefore, combined in an efficient way to produce doped fibers for large bandwidth optical amplifiers. The preform was made of a 10 mm external diameter tellurite tube filled with an array of non-periodic tellurite capillaries and an erbium-doped telluride rod that constitute the fiber core. The preform was drawn in a Heathway Drawing Tower, producing fibers with diameters between 120 - 140 μm. We show optical microscope photography of the fiber's transverse section. The ASE spectra obtained with a spectra analyzer show a red shift as the length of the optical fiber increases.