Advances in Glasses and Fabrication Processes for Integrated Optical Amplifiers

Since the first demonstrations in 1987 of Er3+-doped fiber amplifiers, rare earth doped glasses have been attracting a continuous attention for the implementation of integrated optical amplifiers and lasers, mostly for telecommunication applications. The progress has concerned the development of both the glass material (in terms of host composition and of doping) and the fabrication processes. Here we present a brief overview of recent advances in the area of erbium doped waveguide amplifiers (EDWAs) based on oxide glass matrices. Particular reference is made to our work on silica-based and tellurite glasses; our fabrication processes included ion exchange, RF-sputtering and sol-gel deposition. Different patterning and writing techniques for the channel waveguide fabrication are discussed as well.