Radiation-hardened Erbium-doped optical fibers and amplifiers for future high-dose space missions

We present a new class of Erbium-doped optical fibers: the Hole-Assisted Carbon-Coated, HACC fibers. Optical fibers with this particular structure have been made by iXFiber on the basis of an appropriate choice of codopants in their core and claddings. By using an additional pre-treatment with deuterium (D2) loading authorized by the HACC structure, we highlight the efficiency of such components and demonstrated that this new type of fiber presents a strongly enhanced radiation resistance compared to the other types of erbium-doped optical fibers studied in litterature. We also built an Erbium-doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA) with one of these HACC fibers and compared its radiation response to the one of the same fiber composition but without the HACC structure and D2 loading. We tested the performances of this EDFA under Υ-rays and characterize its gain degradation up to doses of 315 krad. Before irradiation, the amplifier presents a gain of about 31 dB that is comparable to the optical performances of amplifiers based on HACC fibers without the D2 pre-treatment and the HACC structure. During irradiation, our results demonstrate that the tested amplifier is nearly unaffected by radiations. Its gain slowly decreases with the dose at a slope rate of about -2.2×10-3 dB/krad. This strong radiation resistance (enhancement of a factor of ×10 compared to the previous or conventional radiation tolerant EDFA) will authorize the use of HACC doped fibers and amplifiers for various applications in space for missions associated both with low or large irradiation doses.

[1]  E. J. Friebele,et al.  Space radiation effects on erbium-doped fiber devices: sources, amplifiers, and passive measurements , 1997 .

[2]  A. L. Tomashuk,et al.  Radiation-resistant erbium-doped silica fibre , 2007 .

[3]  B. Cadier,et al.  Radiation Effects on Ytterbium- and Ytterbium/Erbium-Doped Double-Clad Optical Fibers , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.

[4]  Jérémie Thomas.  Impact de la nanostructuration des fibres dopées Erbium sur leurs performances : application aux contraintes du spatial , 2013 .

[5]  S. Girard,et al.  Radiation Effects on Silica-Based Optical Fibers: Recent Advances and Future Challenges , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.

[6]  David L. Griscom,et al.  Nature Of Defects And Defect Generation In Optical Glasses , 1985, Other Conferences.

[7]  Yang Yu,et al.  Improvement of radiation resistance by introducing CeO2 in Yb-doped silicate glasses , 2012 .

[8]  A. L. Tomashuk,et al.  Radiation-Resistant Erbium-Doped Fiber for Spacecraft Applications , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.

[9]  D. Boivin,et al.  Radiation-resistant erbium-doped-nanoparticles optical fiber for space applications. , 2012, Optics express.

[10]  S. Girard,et al.  Radiation hardening techniques for Er/Yb doped optical fibers and amplifiers for space application. , 2012, Optics express.

[11]  B. Cadier,et al.  Influence of ${\rm Ce}^{3+}$ Codoping on the Photoluminescence Excitation Channels of Phosphosilicate Yb/Er-Doped Glasses , 2012, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[12]  J. Stone,et al.  Interactions of hydrogen and deuterium with silica optical fibers: A review , 1987 .

[13]  M. Gaillardin,et al.  Design of Radiation-Hardened Rare-Earth Doped Amplifiers Through a Coupled Experiment/Simulation Approach , 2013, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[14]  F. Berghmans,et al.  Proton- and Gamma-Induced Effects on Erbium-Doped Optical Fibers , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.

[15]  H. Henschel,et al.  Radiation-induced loss of rare earth doped silica fibres , 1997 .