Engineering of Glasses for Advanced Optical Fiber Applications

Abstract

Advanced optical applications (such as fiber optics) demand the engineering of innovative materials which provide the requisite optical performance in a form with specific functionality necessary for the desired application. We will report on recent efforts to engineer new non-oxide glasses with tailored photo-sensitive response, and multi-component oxide glasses optimized for use in next generation Raman amplification applications. The ultimate performance of such glasses relies on control of the formation and stability of defective and/or metastable structural configurations and their impact on physical as well as linear and nonlinear optical properties. Direct laser writing has drawn considerable attention since the development of femtosecond lasers and the recognition that such systems possess the requisite intensity to modify, reversibly or irreversibly the physical properties of optical materials. Such “structuring” has emerged as one of several possible routes for the fabrication of waveguides and other photo-induced structures.