New materials for Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers based on zirconia coated gold nanoparticles

Since the beginning of XXI century, the optical fiber became the most applied implement in the domain of information transfer. Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFA) are devices augmenting optical signal directly, without a need... [ view full abstract ]

Since the beginning of XXI century, the optical fiber became the most applied implement in the domain of information transfer. Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFA) are devices augmenting optical signal directly, without a need to transform it to electrical signal. They made a breakthrough in the telecommunication field in the 90th, therefore it exist a great need for new materials which should fulfilled many requirements for this technology (size minimization, the performance and the gain of signal).
The aim of our project is to create a new silica-containing porous material (a preform for optical fiber) with the organometallic erbium systems as an original EDFA. The novelty of our approach is an application of gold nanoparticles as a support for Er complexes, which should induce the exacerbation of lanthanide signal and increase optical proprieties of this material.
We have synthesized a series of organometallic bifunctional compounds which show simultaneously the affinity to gold nanopraticles (thiol group) and lanthanide chelator (DTPA or cyclen system). These compounds were introduced to the gold NP sample dispersed in ZrO2 by the mean of sol/gel method. An application of zirconia matrix permits to maintain the nanoparticle’s size at elevated temperature required for the preform fabrication.[1] Spectroscopic properties of new materials revealed the intense signal at the telecommunication C-band (1.5 µm). We perform now the introduction of these systems to the porous silica by the sol/gel method and MCVD in order to obtain the preform.
The preliminary studies show encouraging results at the characterization stage: all materials give intense emission signal at 1530 nm after pumping at 980 nm regions. We managed to form first silica aerogel and xerogel samples, doped with gold NP covered by Er complexes and they revealed the same spectroscopic properties as the starting NP’s model. The next step of our project is to introduce our systems to preform and manufacture Au/Er containing optical fiber amplifier.

Ref.:
[1] A. Pastre, O. Christini-Robbe, L. Bois, D. Branzea, A. Boé, C. Kinowski, K. Raulin, A. Rolland, R. Bernanrd, Matr. Res. Express, 2016, 3, 015002