Ultrabroadband near-infrared emission from a colorless bismuth-doped glass

The characteristics of bismuth-doped glasses were investigated as colorless ultrabroadband near-infrared gain media. The colorless Bi-doped soda-lime-silicate glass was prepared under controlled redox conditions, and it realized the broadest near-infrared emission of about 600 nm in full width at half maximum, centered at 1000 nm, under 720 nm excitation. The emission band extended toward shorter wavelengths compared with the shortest wavelength for the Bi-doped glass ever reported. The colorless Bi-doped glass developed in this work has a good potential for the broadband gain media for amplifiers and tunable lasers. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.