Permanent and Transient Refractive Index Gratings in Rare-Earth Activated Silicate Glasses

这是稀土掺杂硅酸盐玻璃物理学上的一个新项目，用于在稀土活化硅酸盐玻璃中形成永久和瞬态折射率光栅。这些研究将为定制这些介质的光折变特性提供物理基础，用于频率选择开关、全息存储器、分布式反馈激光器以及光信号处理中的其他应用。玻璃是内部合成和表征的性质光栅强度和动力学。这些测量结果得到了对玻璃声子物理和输运特性的理论研究和实验研究的支持。PI希望展示一个使用瞬态光栅的频率选择光开关原型。这种装置对于增加光通信网络的容量是非常重要的。这是稀土掺杂硅酸盐玻璃物理学的一个新项目，用于在稀土活化硅酸盐玻璃中形成永久和瞬态折射率光栅。如果由不同光波携带的信息沿同一根光纤同时传输，无需安装新的电缆，光纤电话网络的容量就可以大大增加。要做到这一点，必须能够切换和分离这些不同的光波，以便信息到达正确的接收器。波长选择性滤光片和开关是实现这一目标的一种有趣的方法。目前的研究项目旨在了解使含稀土硅酸盐玻璃成为制造这些开关和过滤器的一类材料的物理过程和化学成分。这项研究的结果有望为定制玻璃化学和加工提供“路线图”，以生产这种高效的设备。这项工作的预期结果之一将是一个原型波长。＊＊＊

9705284 Dixon This is a new project on the physics of rare earth doped silicate glasses for the formation of permanent and transient refractive index gratings in rare-earth activated silicate glasses. These studies will help develop a pjysical basis for tailoring the photorefractive properties of these media for frequency-selective switches, holographic memories, distributed feedback lasers, and other applications in optical signal processing. Glasses are synthesized in-house and characterized for properties of grating strength and kinetics. These measurements are supported by theoretical studies and by experimental studies of the phonon physics and transport properties of the glasses. The PI's expect to demonstrate a prototype frequency-selective optical switch using transient gratings. Such a device is important in order to increase the capacity of optical communications networks. %%% This is a new project on the physics of rare earth doped silicate glasses for the formation of permanent and transient refractive index gratings in rare-earth activated silicate glasses. The capacity of fiber optical telephone networks can be greatly increased, without installing new cable, if messages carried by different light waves are transmitted simultaneously along the same fiber. To do this, it is essential to be able to switch and separate these different light waves so that the messages arrives at the correct receiver. Light wavelength-selective filters and switches are an interesting means of accomplishing this. The present research project is directed toward understanding the physical processes and chemical compositions that make rare earth containing silicate glasses a class of materials in which to fabricate these switches and filters. The results of this research are expected to provide a "road map" for tailoring the glass chemistry and processing to produce efficient devices of this kind. One of the expected outcome of this work will be a prototype wavelength. ***