Bismuth-doped optical fibers: a challenging active medium for near-IR lasers and optical amplifiers

It has recently been demonstrated that Bi-doped glass optical fibers are a promising active laser medium. Various types of Bi-doped optical fibers have been developed and used to construct Bi-doped fiber lasers and optical amplifiers. This paper reviews the recent results regarding the luminescence properties of various Bi-doped optical fibers and the development of Bi-doped fiber lasers and optical amplifiers for the 1150 to 1550 nm spectral region.