Widely wavelength tunable Dy 3+ /Er 3+ co-doped ZBLAN fiber lasers

Abstract

Wavelength tunable dysprosium-erbium (Dy 3+ /Er 3+ ) co-doped ZBLAN (ZrF 4 -BaF 2 -LaF 3 -AlF 3 -NaF) fiber lasers pumped at 980 nm were developed with a bulk grating blazed at 3.1 µm in the Littrow configuration and their performances were investigated. A wavelength tunable range of 674.4 nm (2709.2 nm −3373.6 nm) was achieved with a 4.5-m 0.25 mol.% Dy 3+ / 4 mol.% Er 3+ co-doped ZBLAN fiber. Our experiments demonstrated that either Er 3+ or Dy 3+ can be lasing individually in a Dy 3+ /Er 3+ co-doped ZBLAN fiber and a fiber laser with wavelength tunable range from 2.7 µm to 3.4 µm or longer wavelengths can be achieved with proper fiber and cavity design.