Tellurite glasses for ultrabroadband fiber Raman amplifiers

Tellurite glasses optimized for higher Raman gain and broad bandwidth have been realized. These glasses were found to have improved thermal stabilities, which make them suitable for fiber devices applications. While maintaining the Raman gains at higher values, the Raman bandwidths could be broadened by proper addition of alkaline earth oxides and heavy metal oxides in to the tellurite glasses. The relative Raman gain and Raman cross sections of the present glasses are better than the tellurite-based glasses reported earlier. Thus, higher Raman gain and much broader Raman amplifications could be possible by using this tellurite glass system as a gain medium compared with the conventional tellurite-based fiber Raman amplifiers.