HIGH ERBIUM CONTENT HEAVY-METAL FLUORIDE GLASSES

Rare earth glasses with high doping concentrations are candidates for the production of eye-safe microchip lasers for use as transmitters an d detector amplifiers in laser radar systems and as transmitters in ul trahigh data rate communication systems. Presently only low concentrat ions of rare earths have been incorporated into glass hosts but microc hip lasers will require higher dopant concentrations in order to obtai n sufficient absorption of the pump radiation. In this work, glass sys tems based on ZrF4 were found to be able to support dopant concentrati ons of ErF3 up to 18 mol%. The thermal, optical and absorption propert ies of these ZBEAN glasses are examined as a function of concentration .