Rare Earth-Activated Confined Structures for Spectroscopic Properties Enhancement: Ultratransparent Glass Ceramics, Planar Waveguides, Spherical Microresonators and Microcavities

This paper deals with glass-based photonic structurers, which allow to control and modify the optical and spectroscopic properties of rare earth ions. Starting with sol gel-derived planar waveguides the most significant properties obtained for spherical microresonators, 1-D photonic band gap structures, and ultra-transparent glass ceramics are reported.