Optical properties of the Yb/Er co-doped silica glass prepared by laser sintering technology

Yb/Er co-doped silica glass is the critical core material in the fabrication for Yb/Er co-doped optical fiber. In this paper, we demonstrate the novel laser sintering technology for making the Yb/Er co-doped silica glass rod, and analyze its physical and optical properties. The experimental results show that the fabricated silica glass is amorphous, and Yb3+/Er3+ ions uniformly distribute in the glass matrix. The material presents very good emission property around 1535 nm, and the calculation result of the gain cross section also indicates the good gain property at the emission band. Moreover, the Judd-Ofelt analysis results show that the material has very attractive spectroscopic parameters. These results can be used as good reference for the fabrication of Yb/Er co-doped optical fibers used for high-power fiber lasers in the future.