Rare earth doped fluoride glass fibers have been shown to be excellent laser materials. Besides their unique properties as fiber lasers, they offer more metastable levels as compared to silica, thus improving performance, adding new wavelengths and allowing easier upconversion lasing. Room temperature cw three-level, self-terminating, upcon- version,... lasers were demonstrated. Energy transfer and cross-relaxations devices with high efficiency and low threshold have been reported. Effort is now brought on diode-pumped and tunable fluoride fiber lasers. This review paper gives an exhaustive bibliography in the field of fluoride fiber lasers and related topics, and details late new results obtained in the field.

Date Published: 1 February 1992
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 1581, Fiber Laser Sources and Amplifiers III, (1 February 1992); doi: 10.1117/12.134967

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1581:
Fiber Laser Sources and Amplifiers III
Michel J. F. Digonnet; Elias Snitzer, Editor(s)