Abstract

Rapidly increasing internet and data traffic are stimulating the demand for higher information transmission capacity of backbone and “metro” optical network. To meet this capacity demand, the practical use of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA) has been the key technology for massive development of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). Much effort has been performed to broaden and flatten the EDFA bandwidth to increase the capacity in WDM system. Moreover, compact amplifiers such as Er-doped planar waveguide amplifier have been proposed to meet low spatial and low cost demand for metro use. We have prepared novel Er-doped Bi₂O₃-based glasses, which exhibit broadband emission and negligible concentration quenching up to 26,000 ppm of Er concentration [1-2]. In this paper, we report the broadband and short-length amplification properties of Bi₂O₃ based Er doped fibers (Bi-EDF).

© 2000 Optical Society of America