Multicolor upconversion emissions in Tm3+/Er3+ codoped tellurite photonic microwire between silica fiber tapers

We report multicolor upconversion emissions including the blue-violet, green, and red lights in a Tm3+/Er3+ codoped tellurite glass photonic microwire between two silica fiber tapers. A silica fiber is tapered until its evanescent field is exposed and then angled-cleaved at the tapered center to divide the tapered fibers into two parts. A tellurite glass is melted by a gas flame to cluster into a sphere at the tip of one tapered fiber. The other angled-cleaved tapered fiber is blended into the melted tellurite glass. When the tellurite glass is melted, the two silica fiber tapers are simultaneously moving outwards to draw the tellurite glass into a microwire in between. The advantage of angled-cleaving on fiber tapers is to avoid cavity resonances in high index photonic microwire. Thus, the broadband white light can be transmitted between silica fibers and a special optical property like high intensity upconversion emission can be achieved. A cw 1064 nm Nd:YAG laser light is launched into the Tm3+/Er3+ codoped tellurite microwire through a silica fiber taper to generate the multicolor upconversion emissions, including the blue-violet, green, and red lights, simultaneously. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America