Fabrication and operation of Er-Yb glass waveguide laser arrays at 1.5(mu)m

Waveguide laser arrays are fabricated on Er:Yb-doped phosphate glasses by a two-step ion exchange technique. The channel fabrication based on Ag-Na thermal diffusion followed by field assisted burial step is described. Single mode as well as multimode behavior of the laser is studied at four wavelengths representative of the telecom C-band between 1530-1565 nm. Each laser cavity is made by two fiber Bragg gratings butt-coupled to the waveguide. Fiber-coupled single-mode output powers > 0.8 mW and slope efficiency > 2% are obtained for all wavelengths.