Low threshold Er³âº/Yb³⺠co-doped microcavity laser

An Erbium:Ytterbium codoped microcavity-based laser which is lithographically fabricated from sol-gel is demonstrated. Both single-mode and multimode lasing is observed in the C band (1550nm). The quality factor and pump threshold are experimentally determined for a series of erbium and ytterbium doping concentrations, verifying the inter-dependent relationship between the two dopants. The lasing threshold of the optimized device is 4.2 μW. ; © 2010 SPIE The International Society for Optical Engineering. The authors would like to thank Prof. Mark Thompson at the University of Southern California for aid in the sol-gel preparation. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [0852581], and the Army Research Lab [W911NF-09-0041]. H. Hsu was supported by an Alfred Mann Institute Graduate Research Fellowship. C. Cai was supported by a William Lacey Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Additional information can be found at http://armani.usc.edu