Excited state absorption in Pr3+ doped fluorozirconate glass

This paper reports that the excited state absorption (ESA) spectrum for Pr3+ doped ZBLAN glass is determined using a new technique based on the McCumber theory. ESA peaks at 1380 and 840 nm are found, corresponding to transitions from the 1G4 to the 1D2 and 1I6 levels, respectively. ESA at the fiber amplifier pump wavelength 1.017 μ is found to be very small. The new method is also applied to ER3+ doped glass, and good agreement is obtained between the resulting ESA spectrum and previous measurements using a traditional pump-probe technique