Metal-ion doped broadly tunable optical fibre lasers for lidar

The main objective of the paper is to demonstrate rare-earth (Tm3+, Er3+, Ho3+) and transition-metal ion (Cr-ion) doped glass fibres as potential broadly tunable laser devices. The paper will discuss the spectroscopy of metal ions and suitability of glass hosts for designing efficient devices, which can be pumped using commercially available semiconductor or fibre-based IR laser sources, e.g. at 800, 980, 1020, 1040, and 1480 nm wavelengths. The spectroscopic properties of transition metal ion-host systems are compared briefly with those of crystal based devices. Results of the measured spectroscopic properties for Cr-ion and rare-earth ion doped fibre systems particularly pumped using NIR wavelength from Ti-sapphire sources are also reported.