Optical waveguides – Having particular optical characteristic modifying chemical... – Of waveguide core
Reexamination Certificate
2001-12-31
2004-04-20
Kim, Robert H. (Department: 2871)
Optical waveguides
Having particular optical characteristic modifying chemical...
Of waveguide core
C385S141000, C359S341500
Reexamination Certificate
active
06724972
ABSTRACT:
RELATED APPLICATIONS
The present case is related to co-pending, commonly owned, concurrently filed U.S. Applications entitled “Improved Emission Silicate Waveguide Compositions For Extended L-Band and S-band Amplification” and “Germanium Free Silicate Waveguide Compositions For Extended L-Band and S-Band Amplification”, both of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an optical waveguide suitable for optical amplification at wavelengths in the extended L- and S-bands. In particular, the present invention relates to waveguides having a chemical composition that provides for longer excited-state lifetime and enhanced infrared emission.
High-speed optical telecommunications via optical networks allow for the transfer of extremely large amounts of information through optical signals. As these optical signals travel over long distances or are coupled, manipulated, or directed by optical devices, the signals lose their strength. Signal attenuation may be caused by a number of factors, such as the intrinsic absorption and scattering in the transmission fiber, coupling losses, and bending losses. As a signal becomes weaker, it becomes more difficult to detect and propagate the signal. Eventually, a signal may become so weak that the information is lost.
Optical amplification is a technology that intensifies an optical signal. Optical amplification is a vital part of present-day high-speed optical communications.
Optical amplification is typically performed using devices (amplifiers) that contain a pump laser, a wavelength division multiplexer, isolators, gain shaping gratings, and an active rare-earth-doped optical fiber. The typical wavelength range at which present day optical networks—and optical amplifiers—operate is ~1530-1570 nm, the so-called C-band. A band may be defined as a range of wavelengths, i.e., an operating envelope, within which the optical signals may be handled. A greater number of available bands generally translates into more available communication channels. The more channels, the more information may be transmitted.
Each band is identified with a letter denomination. Band denominations used in the present application are:
Band
Wavelength Range
C-
~1530 to ~1570 nm
L-
1570 to ~1605 nm
Extended L
1570 to ~1630 + nm
S
1450 to 1530 nm
Currently, high-speed internet-backbone optical fiber networks rely on optical amplifiers to provide signal enhancement about every 40-100 km. State-of-the-art commercial systems rely on dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) to transmit ~80−10 Gbit/second channels within a narrow wavelength band (e.g. C-band). Channels can be spaced ~0.4 nm apart. These channels can be interleaved with forward and backward transmission (0.4 nm between a forward and backward directed channel) to provide multiterabit/second bidirectional transmission rates over a single fiber.
Recently, with the advent of L-band amplifiers, the optical transmission operating range has been extended from 1530-1565 nm to 1530-1605 nm—using both C- and L-band amplifiers, which provides up to 160 channels/fiber. There is a significant desire for even broader band operation to increase information throughput. Normally operation is limited to a maximum wavelength of ~1605 nm by excited state absorption in the erbium-doped fiber. Operation is theoretically limited to wavelengths of light shorter than ~1650 nm in silicate-based fibers owing to high attenuation from multiphonon absorption at wavelengths greater than 1650 nm. Currently, operation is practically limited to wavelengths shorter than ~1630 nm in a fiber system owing to macrobending losses.
Future systems will potentially use wavelengths from 1450 to 1630 nm, which includes the so-called S-band. Use of the S-band has been demonstrated to nearly double the information carrying capacity of existing two stage C-+L-band systems. Transmissions of up to ~10.5 Tb/s over a single fiber using a C-+L-+S-band configuration have been shown in a laboratory demonstration.
There are generally three approaches to optical amplification in the 1450-1630 nm region; Raman amplification, amplification with rare-earth-doped fiber amplifiers, and amplification that combines Raman and rare-earth-doped components.
Raman Fiber Amplifiers
Raman amplifiers rely on the combination of input photons with lattice vibration (phonons) to shift the pump light to longer wavelengths (Stokes shift). Amplification spectra are broad, but sometimes have unwanted sharp peaks. The process is inefficient, and requires a high power pump source. Such high power pumps include fiber lasers or a series of laser diodes, which can be quite costly. The process is nonlinear with incident intensity. Because it requires high input intensities, the process may lead to other unwanted nonlinear processes such as 4-wave mixing and self phase modulation. Nonetheless, Raman amplifiers are useful in combination with rare-earth-doped amplifiers to increase span lengths, especially for 10 Gbit/s and faster systems operating in the C- and L-bands.
Rare-Earth-Doped Fiber Amplifiers
Rare-earth doped amplifiers rely on excitation of electrons in rare-earth ions by an optical pump and subsequent emission of light as the excited ions relax back to a lower energy state. Excited electrons can relax by two processes: spontaneous emission and stimulated emission. The former leads to unwanted noise and the latter provides amplification. Critical parameters for an amplifier are its spectral breadth, noise figure, and power conversion efficiency (PCE). The latter two parameters correlate with excited state lifetime of the rare-earth ions: longer lifetimes lead to lower noise and higher PCEs. Spectral breadth in the fiber in the C-band, which determines how many channels can be simultaneously amplified in the C-band, correlates with the full-width-half-maximum (FWHM) of the spontaneous emission spectrum of the rare-earth-doped glass.
The majority of commercial amplifiers are based on fibers in which the core glass comprises erbium-doped silicates that contain either aluminum and lanthanum (SALE—(silicon, aluminum, lanthanum, erbium)) or aluminum and germanium (SAGE). Of the two traditional fiber types, SAGE provides slightly greater spectral width, which allows for additional channels. SALE fiber generally provides slightly higher solubility of rare earth ions, which enables shorter fibers to be used. This is advantageous to minimize, for example, polarization mode dispersion. SALE and SAGE fibers typically provide amplification in the C- or L-bands, but this leaves a large portion of the low-loss region of the silica transmission fiber unused, namely the S-band and long wavelength portion of the extended L-band region (>1610 nm).
In the S-band, rare-earth doped fiber amplifiers typically rely on non-silicate thulium (Tm)-doped glasses. Thulium provides a relatively broad emission that is centered at ~1470 nm. The energy levels of thulium are such that multiphonon processes can easily quench this transition, especially in high phonon energy hosts such as silica. For this reason, lower phonon energy glasses such as heavy metal oxides (e.g. germanosilicates) and especially fluoride glasses such as “ZBLAN” are preferred as hosts for the thulium. These non-silicate glasses tend to be difficult to fiberize and splice to existing transmission fiber and to date have limited commercial applications.
In the extended L-band, rare earth doped fibers typically are heavy-metal oxide or fluoride-based. Examples of oxide glasses are those based on tellurium oxide and antimony oxide. Both of these types of glasses are difficult to splice owing to their low melting points and high refractive indices.
In the S- and extended L-band, researchers have worked on an optical amplifier approach using a fiber with a core containing simultaneously erbium and thulium. Unexamined Korean Patent Application; No. 10-1998-00460125 mentions a fiber having a core comprising SiO
2
, P
2
O
5
, Al
2
O
3
, GeO
2
,
Anderson Mark T.
Budd Kenton D.
Onstott James R.
Schardt Craig R.
3M Innovative Properties Company
Ball Alan
Caley Michael H
Kim Robert H.
Rosenblatt Gregg H.
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