2μm波段硫系玻璃微球激光器的制备和表征

工作在2μm波段附近的中红外微球激光器在生物医学传感、激光雷达、窄带光学滤波和空气污染监控等领域具有重要的应用价值.本文以自制的Tm~(3+)-Ho~(3+)共掺的Ge-Ga-Sb-S (2S2G)硫系玻璃为基质材料,采用玻璃粉末高温漂浮熔融法批量制备了高品质(典型品质因数大于10~5)硫系玻璃微球.优选一颗直径为205.82μm的微球为实验对象,利用光纤锥耦合法对其进行光学近场耦合实验.在808 nm抽运光的作用下,在1.8—2.1μm波段处可观测到明显的荧光回廊模现象.当抽运功率达到0.848 mW的阈值时,可在2080 nm附近观测到明显的激光输出.上述实验结果表明本文采用的2S2G硫系玻璃具有用于制备工作在中远红外波段的有源光学/光电子学器件的潜力.

Fabrication and characterization of chalcogenide glass microsphere lasers operating at 2 μm

Microsphere lasers operating at the \$2{\text{μ}}{\rm{m}}$\ band have important applications in the fields of bio-medical sensing, laser radars, narrow linewidth optical filtering, and air-pollution monitoring. In this work, we utilize a novel type of chalcogenide glass, whose composition is Ge-Ga-Sb-S or 2S2G, to fabricate microsphere lasers. Compared with chalcogenide glasses used in previous microsphere lasers, this 2S2G glass is environmentally friendly. It also has a lower melting temperature and a higher characterization temperature, implying that 2S2G microspheres can be fabricated at lower temperatures and the crystallization problem happening in the sphere-forming process can be mitigated. A \$\text{Tm}^{3+}\text{-}\text{Ho}^{3+} $\ co-doping scheme is applied to the 2S2G glass, so that fluorescence light at ～\$2{\text{μ}}{\rm{m}}$\ can be obtained from the bulk glass. Owing to the superior properties of the 2S2G glass, we can utilize a droplet method to mass-produce hundreds of high-quality 2S2S microspheres in one experimental run. The diameters of microspheres fabricated in this work fall in a range of 50-\$250{\text{μ}}{\rm{m}}$\ and typical quality factors (Q factor) of microspheres are higher than 10⁵. As a representative example, we characterize the optical properties of a \$205.82{\text{μ}}{\rm{m}}$\ diameter 2S2G microsphere. This microsphere is placed in contact with a silica fiber taper, so that the pump light can be evanescently introduced into the microsphere and the fluorescence light can be evanescently collected from the microsphere. A commercial laser diode (808 nm) is used as a pump source and an optical spectral analyzer is used to measure the transmission spectra of the microsphere/fiber taper coupling system. Apparent whispering gallery mode patterns in the ～\$2{\text{μ}}{\rm{m}}$\ band can be noted in the transmission spectra of the coupling system. When the pump power increases beyond a threshold of 0.848 mW, a lasing peak at 2080.54 nm can be obtained from the coupling system. Experimental results presented in this work show that this 2S2G chalcogenide glass is a promising base material for fabricating various active optical/photonic devices in the middle-wavelength and long-wavelength infrared spectra.