Abstract

It was shown in 2001 that Bi-doped silica-based glasses emit in a wavelength region of 1100-1500 nm [1], which overlaps with the low loss window of silica fibers. This makes Bi-doped fibers attractive active media for lasers and amplifiers in this spectral region, which is not covered by rare-earth doped fiber lasers and amplifiers. The first Bi-doped optical fibers were fabricated in 2005 [2, 3] and that year the first Bi-doped fiber laser was made [4]. During the following two years a family of Bi-doped silica-based fiber lasers was created, which operated at 1150-1215 nm(see, e.g. [5]).

© 2009 IEEE