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Optics Letters

Optical bistability of stimulated-emission lines in Sm^3+-doped glass microspheres

Tomokatsu Hayakawa, Hiroyuki Ooishi, Masayuki Nogami

Published Jan 15, 2001• 22 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A third-order optical nonlinear effect in a spherical glass resonator doped with Sm(3+) ions has been observed on stimulated emission lines of the (4)G(5/2)-(6)H(7/2) transition, in which the excitation beam of an Ar(+) laser in a 488-nm single line is coupled with the glass resonator through a prism. A spherical form is produced during a free fall of fractional glasses in a longitudinal electric furnace configured vertically. The prism-coupled glass microsphere exhibits sufficient performance to confine photon energy as a resonance of light inside the sphere and offers the prospect of new applications to functional photonic circuits.

DOI
10.1364/ol.26.000084

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A third-order optical nonlinear effect in a spherical glass resonator doped with Sm(3+) ions has been observed on stimulated emission lines of the (4)G(5/2)-(6)H(7/2) transition, in which the excitation beam of an Ar(+) laser in a 488-nm single line is coupled with the glass resonator through a prism. A spherical form is produced during a free fall of fractional glasses in a longitudinal electric furnace configured vertically. The prism-coupled glass microsphere exhibits sufficient performance to confine photon energy as a resonance of light inside the sphere and offers the prospect of new applications to functional photonic circuits.
Microsphere cavities offer appealing advantages for applications as miniature light sources due to their small size, high quality factor and low mode volume. Active spheres can be fabricated from glass doped with rare-earth ions such as Er3+ and Yb3+. The close proximity of energy levels in these triply-ionized ions is of particular advantage for obtaining fluorescence emissions through various upconversion mechanisms [1]. Here we report the first observation of chromatic and intensity optical bistability (OB) in a commercial, active, phosphate glass (Schott IOG-2) microsphere driven by thermal avalanche at room temperature. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first report of simultaneous intensity OB (at multiple wavelengths) and chromatic OB in a single material.
In a Nd-glass microspherical cavity the spontaneous enhancement and inhibition emission processes have been observed in the optical region. The rate of the enhanced spontaneous emission is larger than the free-space values for some transitions, so that some lasing lines of Nd-ion in glass have been observed, since the large enhancements of the transition rates may modify the decay processes in the multilevel system of the Nd-glass medium. A simple theoretical discussion is given to explain the possible mechanism of the lasing in the 740 nm and 810 nm wavelength regions. The micropherical cavity laser may be used in studies of Nd- glass microcavity spectroscopy and nonlinear optics.
We experimentally demonstrate optical bistability in Er3+-Yb3+ phosphate glass microspheres at 295 K. Bistability is associated with both Er3+ fluorescence and lasing behavior, and chromatic switching. The chromatic switching results from an intrinsic mechanism exploiting the thermal coupling of closely spaced energy levels, and occurs simultaneously with the intensity switching. A contrast ratio of 2.8 has been obtained for chromatic switching. The intensity switching shows ratios of 21 for 520 nm and 11 for 660 nm fluorescence emissions, and 11 for IR lasing at 1.5 μm. Concurrent with these observations, we investigate a temperature-dependent absorption of pump power, which exhibits bistable behavior. The influences of the host matrix on lasing and fluorescence mechanisms are highlighted.
The effects of light absorption and amplification on the transition rates of the electric-dipole emission of atoms or molecules embedded in micrometer-sized dielectric spheres are investigated in the framework of classical electrodynamics. The expression for the form factor of a resonant emission line is derived. Its dependence on the imaginary part of the light’s refractive index is investigated. It is discovered that the active sphere does not act as an optical resonator if light amplification is strong.
Stimulated emission into optical whispering modes of a spherical sample of CaF2{\mathrm{F}}_{2}F2​: Sm++{\mathrm{Sm}}^{++}Sm++ has been observed. Light produced by the stimulated emission is radiated tangentially form each point on the surface of the sphere. The experimental results have been interpreted in terms of the electromagnetic analog of the Rayleigh theory of the whispering gallery.