Abstract

Erbium doped integrated optical planar waveguide amplifiers in silica on Si have received an extensive attention since the first report on amplification was presented last year [1]. This work by Kitagawa et al, showing 13.7 dB gain in a 19.4 cm long channel waveguide, is still the most significant result presented so far though also other laboratories now have fabricated Er-doped components on Si [2,3,4]. The ultimate goal however, is a few cm long high gain amplifier. The required extremely high Er-concentrations in such components, break the assumption that Er can be treated as isolated ions. Quenching through energy transfer between closely located neighbouring ions result in a serious pump efficiency reduction, and has to be considered in the description. The goal of this publication is to perform an optimisation of the amplifier with respect to Er- concentration and waveguide core design by including these quenching processes.

© 1993 Optical Society of America