Vol. 28, Issue 4, pp. 367-370

Abstract

It is well known that effective infrared-to-visible upconversion can be easily obtained in ZBLAN (fluoride glass) doped with rare earth ions. The visible fluorescence is extraordinary strong in ZBLAN optical fibers, leading to laser operation when the fiber terminals are butt coupled to the resonator mirrors. On the other hand, the standard silica fibers doped with these ions exhibit very weak infrared-to-visible upconversion because of extremely large quenching of the appropriate fluorescence levels. The aim of this work was to measure the lifetime, ⁴S_3/2, of erbium ion before and after the fiber has been drawn from the silica based preform.