Key Lab of In-fiber Integrated Optics, Ministry Education of China, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China.
State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China.
Sci Rep. 2017 Mar 30;7:44456. doi: 10.1038/srep44456.
A glass-ceramic optical fiber containing BaTiSiO nanocrystals fabricated using a novel combination of the melt-in-tube method and successive heat treatment is reported for the first time. For the melt-in-tube method, fibers act as a precursor at the drawing temperature for which the cladding glass is softened while the core glass is melted. It is demonstrated experimentally that following heat treatment, BaTiSiO nanocrystals with diameters below 10 nm are evenly distributed throughout the fiber core. Comparing to the conventional rod-in-tube method, the melt-in-tube method is superior in terms of controllability of crystallization to allow for the fabrication of low loss glass-ceramic fibers. When irradiated using a 1030 nm femtosecond laser, an enhanced green emission at a wavelength of 515 nm is observed in the glass-ceramic fiber, which demonstrates second harmonic generation of a laser action in the fabricated glass-ceramic fibers. Therefore, this new glass-ceramic fiber not only provides a highly promising development for frequency conversion of lasers in all optical fiber based networks, but the melt-in-tube fabrication method also offers excellent opportunities for fabricating a wide range of novel glass-ceramic optical fibers for multiple future applications including fiber telecommunications and lasers.
一种含有 BaTiSiO 纳米晶的微晶玻璃光纤，采用熔体管法和连续热处理的新组合首次制备成功。对于熔体管法，纤维在拉丝温度下充当前体，此时包层玻璃软化而芯玻璃熔化。实验证明，经过热处理后，直径小于 10nm 的 BaTiSiO 纳米晶均匀分布在光纤芯部。与传统的棒管法相比，熔体管法在结晶的可控性方面具有优势，能够制造低损耗的微晶玻璃光纤。当用 1030nm 飞秒激光照射时，在玻璃陶瓷光纤中观察到波长为 515nm 的增强绿光发射，这表明在制备的玻璃陶瓷光纤中存在激光作用的二次谐波产生。因此，这种新型玻璃陶瓷光纤不仅为全光纤网络中激光的频率转换提供了极具前景的发展，而且熔体管制造方法还为制造各种新型玻璃陶瓷光纤提供了极好的机会，这些光纤可应用于光纤通信和激光等多个未来领域。
