HIGH ERBIUM CONTENT HEAVY-METAL FLUORIDE GLASSES

Rare earth glasses with high doping concentrations are candidates for the production of eye-safe microchip lasers for use as transmitters and detector amplifiers in laser radar systems and as transmitters in ultrahigh data rate communication systems. Presently only low concentrations of rare earths have been incorporated into glass hosts but microchip lasers will require higher dopant concentrations in order to obtain sufficient absorption of the pump radiation. In this work, glass systems based on ZrF4 were found to be able to support dopant concentrations of ErF3 up to 18 mol%. The thermal, optical and absorption properties of these ZBEAN glasses are examined as a function of concentration.