Preparation And Properties Of Erbium/Bismuth Co-doped Silicate Waveguide Materials With Sol-Gel Method

Erbium-Doped Optical Waveguide Amplifier (EDWA) is a kind of very important optical device. It is small and easy to integration with compact structure, low loss but high gain. Those make it of greatly practical and commercial value. At present, the research on materials, preparation technology and optical properties related to EDWA has become an important content in the optical field.This paper mainly involves the preparation of Erbium/Bismuth co-doped silicate waveguide materials with sol-gel method. We study the sol material directly into the glass material, introduce the preparation of waveguide film on glass substrates with the method of dip coating, analysis its relevant characteristics. The main contents and findings are as follows:The Er/Bi co-doped silica glass material was prepared with sol-gel method. We measured the absorption spectra of the material by using AvaSpec-2048type double channel fiber optic spectrometer. The test results show that the material with the ratio of Er to Si and Er to Bi was designed to be1:100and1:12.5can abtain the biggest absorption cross section of Er3+near976nm. We found the high doped concentration of bismuth ion caused post-mortem crystal phenomenon.The Er/Bi/Ga co-doped silica glass material was prepared with sol-gel method, then we measured the absorption spectra by using the fiber optic spectrometer. The test results show that the symmetry of ligand field about Er3-ion on Er/Bi/Ga co-doped silicate glass materials is lower than other glass materials, and the convalencv of Er-O band decreases. The absorbance band of Er3-ion is wider and Er3+ion obtain bigger absorbance section, which could enhance the using ratio of Pump Light. Comparison of the two materials, the right amount of Ga3+ions inhibits the post-mortem crystal phenomenon caused by the high concentration of bismuth ion doped.We prepared the waveguide film using the sol-gel method and dip coating method on the glass substrates. We observed the surface morphology on the microscope, tested its waveguide properties and characteristics by prism coupling method. The test results show that the Er/Bi co-doped silicate film which we prepared basic can achieve the incentives of light, but the quality of the film needs to be improved.