| In recent years, Erbium (Er)-doped waveguide amplifiers have attracted increasing attention since they can be used to compensate the losses of other functional passive devices, such as splitters, combiners, filters, and multiplexers, in realizing high-density optical integrated circuits operating at a wavelength of 1.55 μM. Such circuits have potential applications in the areas of optical telecommunication and signal processing. This work describes the operation, modeling, and fabrication of Er-doped waveguide amplifiers.; A numerical model to predict the gain characteristics of a heavily doped waveguide amplifier is described. Amplifier noise and all possible gain-limiting mechanisms such as ion-ion interactions are included in the model. Simulation results show that co-doping with Ytterbium (Yb) overcomes the undesirable effects to some extent. Er/Yb co-doped waveguide amplifiers were fabricated using a commercially available laser glass by an electric field-assisted ion-exchange technique. A gain of 1.4 dB over 0.5 cm waveguide is demonstrated. |
