Bismuth-doped optical fibers: a challenging active medium for near-IR lasers and optical amplifiers

It has recently been demonstrated that Bi-doped glass optical fibers are a promising active laser medium. Various types of Bi-doped optical fibers have been developed and used to construct Bi-doped fiber lasers and optical amplifiers. This paper reviews the recent results regarding the luminescence properties of various Bi-doped optical fibers and the development of Bi-doped fiber lasers and optical amplifiers for the 1150 to 1550 nm spectral region. Optical fibers with the bismuth show promise for developing efficient fiber lasers and amplifiers in extended bands of near IR region, in particular, through a whole spectral range of 1150–1550 nm. Devices capable of operating in this region are required for applications in advanced optical communications, medicine and astrophysics, among others. In this paper, Evgeny Dianov from the Fiber Optics Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow reviews the luminescent properties and light-emitting mechanisms of bismuth-doped fibres and the progress made towards constructing lasers and amplifiers from such fibers. In particular, the author describes a laser emitting at 1460 nm with a conversion efficiency of 50%, and an amplifier with a peak gain of 24 dB at 1427 nm, a 3 dB bandwidth of 36 nm and a noise figure of 6 dB.