Er-Ce Co-Doped Aluminosilicate Fibres for C and L-Band Amplifiers

Erbium (Er)-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) plays an irreplaceable role in space optical communications, benefiting from its low loss, high gain, and mechanical robustness. To maintain the performance of EDFA in the aerospace application, cerium (Ce) was used to co-dope with Er to suppress the radiation-induced attenuation (RIA) of the active fibre, with reduced colour centres under irradiation from cosmic rays, solar particles, etc [1]. There are some reports about C-band Er-Ce co-doped fibre amplifiers in the germanosilicate, fluoride, and tellurite glasses [1]–[3]. One report about Er-Ce phosphosilicate fibre was studied in the L-band by providing the normalised gain values [4]. However, there are no reports of the real gain and noise figure (NF) of Er-Ce fibres in the L-band. Here, we report a series of Er-Ce co-doped aluminosilicate fibres with different Ce concentrations, operating in the C-band (1530-1565nm) and L-band (1565-1615nm) amplifications, respectively.