Regular papers

Four-Wave-Mixing in Zirconia-Yttria-Aluminum Erbium Codoped Silica Fiber

¹ Photonics Research Centre, Physics Department, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
² Fiber Optics and Photonics Division, Central Glass & Ceramic Research Institute-CSIR, Kolkata, India
³ Faculty of Science, Technology and Human Development, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Batu Pahat, Johor
⁴ Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

^* harith@um.edu.my

Received: 10 January 2012
Revised: 18 February 2012

Abstract

The generation and characterization of the Four-Wave-Mixing (FWM) effect in an Erbium Doped Zirconia-Yttria-Alumino Silicate Fiber (EDZF) is described. The EZDF is fabricated from a conventional silica preform by Modified Chemical Vapour Deposition (MCVD) and also solution doping to add glass modifiers and nucleating agents, with the resulting preform annealed and drawn into a fiber strand with a 125 ± 0.5 µm diameter. A 4 m long EZDF, ZEr-B with a propagation loss of 0.68 dB/m and an erbium concentration of 3000 ppm is used to investigate the FWM effect. The FWM power levels are measured to be approximately - 45 dBm at a region of 1565 nm and show good agreement with the theoretical predicted values. A non-linear coefficient of 14 W⁻¹km⁻¹ is also measured, along with chromatic and slope dispersion values of 28.45 ps/nm.km and 3.63 ps/nm².km, which agree with the predicted values. The fabricated ZEr-B fibre has many potential applications utilizing the FWM effect, including the generation of multi-wavelength outputs.