An Optoelectronic Pump-Sharing Module for Fiber-Amplifier Systems

Employing the sol-gel technology, the Phase II program intend to realize compact multimode interference (MMI) beam splitters integrated with semiconductor diode lasers on silicon for multi-channel pumping of Er3+ doped fiber amplifiers. The MMI splitterswill be designed for the 980-nm window in such a way that the pump-shared outputs will be achieved through a cavity formed between a diode laser and a Bragg reflector at the input port. The milestones of the Phase I program: the design and successfuldemonstration of 1 x64 MMI splitters in terms of power uniformity, fabrication, tolerance, polarization insensitivity and the alleviation of material internal absorption, will be considered in order to meet the requirements of the high performance fiberamplifying systems. Fabrication reproducibilty of device will be unvestigated, prototype will be built, and pigtailing/packaging technologies will be developed. The phase II progran will provide a simple and inexpensive approach to address the rapidlygrowing demand for amplifying, signal routing and high bandwidth in the optical communication market.