Nonlinear Optical Switch in Rare-Earth Doped Fluoride Glass

纳尔逊最近有人提出，发展全国光纤通信网络是我们整个基础设施发展的一个重要目标，以保持和提高美国在高科技方面的竞争力。 毫无疑问，光交换将在这一高速网络的许多最先进方面发挥重要作用。 Foster-Miller提出了一种基于稀土掺杂氟化物光纤共振增强非线性光开关的光激活开关新方法。 我们将与我们的团队合作伙伴，斯坦福大学金兹顿实验室主任Richard Pantell博士和英国电信研究实验室的Paul France博士一起，在第一阶段通过实验证明基于氟化物光纤的开关的性能比以前的实验有预期的数量级改进。 我们预计，与已知的掺杂氟化物光纤的属性，我们将能够降低所需的泵浦功率和减少的相互作用长度，以产生一个紧凑的和低功率的全光纤开关。 在第二阶段，我们将设计、制造、测试和提供用于光矩阵应用、光计算和光互连、局域网和电信的超高速全光纤开关。 ***

9360816 Nelson The development of a national fiber optic communications network has recently been proposed as an important objective of our overall infrastructure development in order to maintain and improve U.S. competitiveness in high technology. Optical switching will no doubt ply an important role in the functioning of many of the most advanced aspects of this high speed network. In this proposal, Foster-Miller presents a new approach to optically activated switching based on the resonantly-enhanced nonlinear optical switching in rare-earth doped fluoride fibers. Together with our team partners, Dr. Richard Pantell, Director of the Stanford University Ginzton Laboratory and Dr. Paul France of British Telecom Research Laboratories, we will experimentally demonstrate during Phase I an expected order of magnitude improvement in performance of the fluoride fiber based switch over previous experiments. We project that with the known properties of doped fluoride fibers, we will be able to both lower the required pump power and reduce the interaction length to produce a compact and low power all-fiber switch. During Phase II we will design, fabricate, test and deliver very high speed all-fiber switches for use in optical matrix applications, optical computing and optical interconnects, local area networks and telecommunications. ***