Influence of cerium ions on thermal bleaching of photo-darkened ytterbium-doped fibers

Abstract

We studied the influence of cerium (Ce) ions on photo-darkening (PD) behavior in ytterbium/aluminum (Yb/Al) co-doped silica fibers at room and elevated temperatures. Low levels of PD was observed for Ce co-doped Yb/Al fiber. And the Yb/Al co-doped fiber was completely bleached at ~600°C. The addition of Ce ions as co-dopant can significantly lower the initial recovery and complete bleaching temperatures. The complete recovery temperature is ~ 450°C and ~400°C for Yb/Al/Ce low fiber and Yb/Al/Ce high fiber respectively. More importantly, Ce co-doping in Yb/Al fiber also decreases the heat-induced loss.

Keywords

photo-darkening (PD) / ytterbium/aluminum (Yb/Al) fiber / cerium (Ce) ions / thermal bleaching

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61735007), and The Youth Fund of Wuhan Donghu University (No. 2017dhzk009).

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