AFRL SBIR Program Technology Earns R&D 100 Award

  • Published
  • By Dr. Jonathan Goldstein, AFRL/RXA
  • Materials and Manufacturing
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio --  A new kind of optical fiber has been developed by AdValue Photonics, Inc., through a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program managed by the Air Force Research Laboratory. The new optical fiber enables the commercialization of high-power two micron Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) sources and resulted in a two-micron high-power, mode-locked fiber laser.

For this work, AdValue received a 2012 R&D 100 Award, a designation celebrating the top 100 high-technology products of the year as defined by R&D Magazine.

The new all-optical-fiber laser is without free-space components in the optical system, providing advantages in operation, stability and reliability. The laser is commonly used by scientists working with nonlinear optics, frequency conversion, spectroscopy, light detection and ranging, and materials studies. The resulting applications encompass many industries, both commercial and military, including environmental monitoring, hazardous chemical detection, thermal imaging, antimissile infrared countermeasures, materials processing and medical diagnostics.

Fiber lasers and broadband ASE sources are powered by unique gain fibers, which are fabricated utilizing proprietary innovative specialty glasses, which, together with specialty fibers, are the core technology of AdValue Photonics. Other commercial two-micron lasers and ASE sources utilize Tm-doped Silica fiber. AdValue's alternative, Silicate fiber allows higher gain and higher output power over shorter fiber lengths, possesses broader gain bandwidth, and experiences significantly lower optical nonlinearity compared to that of silica fibers. It allows the generation and amplification of optical beams at wavelengths and intensity levels that otherwise cannot be achieved.

In addition, these Silicate fibers are immune from the photo-darkening associated with heavily rare-earth doped silica fiber. The use of Silicate fibers and glasses sets this ASE apart from all competing products. The creation of a Tm-doped Silicate fiber has had a profound effect on performance, quality and cost of these ASE products.

The development offered the broadest bandwidth, near infrared wavelength range, customized center wavelength, and high output power. When the ASE was first commercialized, it was available in 50 milli-Watts (mW) and 500 mW versions. The 500mW source had more than twenty times the power and twice the bandwidth of previously available sources. AdValue has since developed several commercial versions of 1Watt (W), 2W, 5W, and 10W single-mode fiber lasers at two microns, using this proprietary Silicate fiber.