Influence of specific codopants and post-treatments on Erbium Doped Fibers: Radiation behavior characteristics by CML

Coupled experiment/simulation approach for the design of radiation-hardened rare-earth doped optical fibers and amplifiers

We developed an approach to design radiation-hardened rare earth -doped fibers and amplifiers. This methodology combines testing experiments on these devices with particle swarm optimization (PSO) calculations. The composition of Er/Yb-doped phosphosilicate fibers was improved by introducing Cerium inside their cores. Such composition strongly reduces the amplifier radiation sensitivity, limiting its degradation: we observed a gain decreasing from 19 dB to 18 dB after 50 krad whereas previous studies reported higher degradations up to 0°dB at such doses. PSO calculations, taking only into account the radiation effects on the absorption efficiency around the pump and emission wavelengths, co…

X-ray irradiation influence on prototype Er3+-optical fibers: confocal luminescence study

International audience; The integration of rare-earth doped optical fibers as part of fiber-based systems in space implies the development of waveguides tolerant to the radiation levels associated with the space missions. We report the spatial distribution, the photoluminescence (PL) properties of color centers and the related changes induced by X-rays radiation at different doses (50, 500 and 1000 krad) for two different prototypes of Er-doped optical fibers. Each sample (in the version pristine, X-irradiated and H2 loaded prior to radiation exposure) was characterized by confocal microscopy luminescence (CML) measurements in Visible range with Visible (488 nm) or UV (325 nm) laser light e…

Temperature and time dependent electron trapping in Al2O3 thin films onto AlGaN/GaN heterostructures

In this article, the charge trapping phenomena in Al2O3 thin films grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) on AlGaN/GaN heterostructures have been studied by time-dependent capacitance–voltage (C-V) measurements as a function of temperature. In particular, monitoring the transient of the capacitance enabled us to estimate the maximum depth of the insulating layer interested by the negative charge trapping effect under our bias stress conditions and to determine a charge traps density in the bulk Al2O3 in the order of 3 × 1019 cm−3. A temperature dependent C-V analysis up to 150 °C demonstrated the presence of two competitive mechanisms that rule the electron capture and emission in the Al2O3…

Radiation hardening techniques for rare-earth-based optical fibers and amplifiers

Er/Yb doped fibers and amplifiers have been shown to be very radiation sensitive, limiting their integration in space. We present an approach including successive hardening techniques to enhance their radiation tolerance. The efficiency of our approach is demonstrated by comparing the radiation responses of optical amplifiers made with same lengths of different rare-earth doped fibers and exposed to gamma-rays. Previous studies indicated that such amplifiers suffered significant degradation for doses exceeding 10 krad. Applying our techniques significantly enhances the amplifier radiation resistance, resulting in a very limited degradation up to 50 krad. Our optimization techniques concern …

Role of Ce3+ as sensitizer for the infrared luminescence of phosphosilicate Er/Yb doped glasses

The luminescence properties of the Yb/Er-doped phosphosilicate preforms used for the design of active optical fibers were investigated under a tunable laser excitation from ultraviolet to infrared domain. We demonstrated that codoping the glass matrix with Ce3+ ions strongly influences the infrared emission associated with Er3+ ions, it enhances the energy transfer from Yb3+ to Er3+ ions, and it provides an additional ultraviolet excitation channel for the emission of both Yb3+ and Er3+ ions. The excitation/emission pathways are discussed on the basis of models proposed in literature for other systems.

Influence of Ce codoping and H2 pre-loading on Er/Yb-doped fiber: Radiation response characterized by Confocal Micro-Luminescence

International audience; Confocal microscopy luminescence measurements were applied to study the X-ray radiation response of Er/Yb-doped optical fibers in connection with H2 pre-loading and with the addition of another lanthanide element (Cerium) in the core composition. Laser excitations at 488 nm and 325 nm allow deriving the emission and absorption pattern of Er3+, the latter derived from the dips appearing in a wide luminescence band related to defects in silica. We found that the luminescence spectrum of the X-irradiated Er/Yb-doped core fiber evidences an increase in the emission intensity around 520 and 660 nm; in contrast, no changes are induced by radiation neither after H2 pre-load…

Radiation hardening of Rare-Earth doped fiber amplifiers

We investigated the radiation hardening of optical fiber amplifiers operating in space environments. Through a real-time analysis in active configuration, we evaluated the role of Ce in the improvement of the amplifier performance against ionizing radiations. Ce-codoping is an efficient hardening solution, acting both in the limitation of defects in the host glass matrix of RE-doped optical fibers and in the stabilization of lasing properties of the Er3+-ions. On the one hand, in the nearinfrared region, radiation induced attenuation measurements show the absence of radiation induced P-related defect species in host glass matrix of the Ce-codoped active fibers; on the other hand, in the Ce-…

Design of Radiation-Hardened Rare-Earth Doped Amplifiers through a Coupled Experiment/Simulation Approach

International audience; We present an approach coupling a limited experimental number of tests with numerical simulations regarding the design of radiation-hardened (RH) rare earth (RE)-doped fiber amplifiers. Radiation tests are done on RE-doped fiber samples in order to measure and assess the values of the principal input parameters requested by the simulation tool based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) approach. The proposed simulation procedure is validated by comparing the calculation results with the measured degradations of two amplifiers made with standard and RH RE-doped optical fibers, respectively. After validation, the numerical code is used to theoretically investigate the …