Room Temperature Mid-Infrared Fiber Lasing Beyond 5 Mu M In Chalcogenide Glass Small-Core Step Index Fiber

This Letter, to the best of our knowledge, reports mid-infrared fiber lasing beyond 5 mu m at room temperature for the first time, Ce3+-doped, chalcogenide glass, step index fiber employed in-band pumping with a 4.15 mu m quantum cascade laser. The lasing fiber is was 64 mm long, with a calculated numerical aperture of 0.48 at the lasing wavelengths. The core glass was Ge15As21Ga1Se63 atomic % (at. %), doped with 500 parts-per-million-by-weight Ce, with a 9 mu m core diameter. The cladding glass was Ge21Sb10Se69 at. % with a 190 mu m outer diameter. As pump power increases continuous wave lasing corresponding to the F-2(7/2) -> F-2(5/2), transition in the Ce3+ ion occurs at 5.14 mu m, 5.17 mu m, and 5.28 mu m. Published by The Optical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.