An Arizona State University researcher has made another breakthrough using the rare-earth metal erbium as the gain material for an optical amplifier, this time with an achievement that will enable its use for the first time with small chip optical technologies. The discovery attains a decades-long goal in the field of photonic integration, in which different small optical components are tightly combined for better performance and ease of fabrication.
Details of the new optical amplification, "Giant optical gain in a single-crystal erbium chloride silicate nanowire," were published in the July online edition of Nature Photonics.
Cun-Zheng Ning, an ASU electrical engineering professor, and Hao Sun from China's Tsinghua University, and their teams have succeeded in raising erbium's optical gain from the typical low level of a few dB to over 100 dB per centimeter of propagation. The significant increase in optical gain will make it possible for erbium-based materials to be integrated on a chip for optical amplifiers and lasers.
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