This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project proposes to extend the material development of Erbium doped Telluride glass material systems into a waveguide medium for integrated lasers and amplifiers. Rapidly increasing bandwidth demands of telecommunication industry creates a big market opportunity for photonic devices with large bandwidth. The existing lasers and amplifiers based on conventional Er doped glasses encompass only a 40 nm window near 1.5 mm. For Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM), an enormous increase in the amount of information can be obtained by simply increasing the usable spectral window. With its 75 % more bandwidth, Er doped telluride glass is a prime candidate for next generation WDM devices. In Phase I, CoreTek , Inc. will develop low-loss waveguides with high gain and broad spectral width in Er doped telluride glass. In Phase II, the development of laser structures using the technology developed in Phase I as well as integration and packaging issues will be addressed. Anticipated Benefits and
Potential Commercial Applications: WDM transmitters and amplifiers for telecommunication industry Broadband light source for optical fiber sensors Light source for analytical applications Gyroscopes
