Evaluation of quenching effects on silica-based erbium doped fiber micro-ring lasers

While micro-ring lasers is a step forward for the miniaturization of fiber lasers, up-conversion quenching due to ion energy transfer may limit the device size and deteriorate system performance. The effect of Er³⁺ concentration quenching on the characteristics of silica-based Er-doped fiber (EDF) micro-ring laser was investigated. In particular, the dependence on Er³⁺ concentration and laser size of threshold pump power and quantum efficiency is discussed. To achieve high laser efficiency, it was found that ring diameter has to be ∼150 μm with ∼5 wt.% erbium concentration. The threshold value is increased by a factor of 340, for such laser characteristics compared with threshold power when up-conversion is not considered. Moreover, we show that detrimental effect due to up-conversion quenching can be reduced by careful micro-ring laser design.