Abstract

Over the past decade there has been increasing interest in the development of Bi-doped fiber lasers (BFL) and amplifiers (BFA). Although in recent years there has been substantial progress in this field [1], such devices suffer from a number of drawbacks. The very low levels of Bismuth doping and, as a consequence, significant fiber length (typically 80 – 100 m) are necessary to ensure the efficient BFL and BFA operation. It is now generally accepted that that the poor understanding of the nature of the near infrared (NIR) photoluminescence (PL) in Bi-doped glasses is the main reason restraining the development of the efficient devices. Indeed, since the first demonstration of the NIR PL in Bi-doped silica glasses [2] and up to now there is no consensus on the nature of the PL in Bi-doped glasses [3, 4]. In this context new experiments would be highly desirable that can probe the luminescent centers in Bi-doped silica glasses to provide information on their nature.

© 2015 IEEE