Chalcogenide glasses as a medium for controlling ultrashort IR pulses: Part I

Chalcogenide glasses are ideal materials for developing fiber lasers and amplifiers, remote sensors, high-speed switches, and other devices that operate in the IR range of 1–10 μm. The nonlinear refractive index of chalcogenide glasses may exceed that of quartz glass by a factor of 100–1200 or even more. The data on the dispersion properties of some chalcogenide glass compositions in the IR range are presented. The possibility of forming waveguide structures with specified dispersion properties (in particular with a fixed wavelength at which the group velocity dispersion is zero) from these glasses is numerically investigated. It is shown by the example of completely glassy periodic waveguide structures with planar geometry that the use of photonic band gap modes makes it possible the change the position of zero dispersion in a wide wavelength range. In the calculations the contrast of waveguide structures was varied using parameters of glasses of different composition.