Engineering Research Equipment: Optical Fiber Lasers

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At the Laboratory for Lightwave Technology within the Division of Engineering at Brown University, a new method for the fabrication of rare earth fiber lasers has been developed. These are important not only for their role in amplification of telecommunications signals, but for a host of novel sensing applications. The technique involves a novel aerosol technique for the transport and incorporation into the core of an optical fiber preform rare earth elements whose precursors have low vapor pressures. Organic solids containing rare earth elements are dissolved in liquid organometallic compounds. The resulting solution is nebulized and the (approximately) four micron diameter droplets are convected by means of a carrier gas into a substrate tube in the MCVD (Modified Chemical Vapor /Deposition) process used optical fiber preform fabrication. At an appropriate heat source, these particles then vaporize and react to form multi- component oxide particles that are thermophoretically deposited and subsequently sintered. This process represents a new technique for the formation of high purity glass, in particular, for the cord doping of fiber lasers using the MCVD process. The PI seeks additional equipment to aide in the characterization of these fiber lasers, and to assess the role of co-doping on laser gain.