Demonstration of net gain at 1550 nm in an erbium-doped polymersingle mode rib waveguide

A polymer-based waveguide optical amplifier doped with Er3+ ions has been modeled, fabricated, and characterized. Propagation losses have been measured using both cutback and Fabry-?rot methods, resulting in similar, reasonable loss values that do not exceed 1.31 dB cm-1 at 1540 nm. By accounting for overall propagation loss, a net gain of 1.34 dB at 1540 nm is demonstrated for a 1.6 cm long single mode waveguide amplifier. © 2006 American Institute of Physics.