Study of Lanthanum Aluminum Silicate Glasses for Passive and Active Optical Fibers

We are reporting on SiO2-Al2O3-La2O3 glasses-with and without Yb2O3-suitable for nonlinear and fiber laser applications. We will also be presenting successful supercontinuum generation and fiber laser operation around 1060 nm in step-index fibers. We optimized the glass compositions in terms of thermal and optical requirements for both a high La2O3 and Yb2O3 concentration and good compatibility with a silica cladding. We also produced bulk samples, unstructured fibers, and structured fibers with a SiO2-Al2O3-La2O3 core and silica cladding for this purpose.