title: Contributed Review: A review of the investigation of rare-earth dopant profiles in optical fibers.
abstract: Rare-earth doped optical fibers have captivated the interest of many researchers around the world across the past three decades. The growth of this research field has been stimulated primarily through their application in optical communications as fiber lasers and amplifiers, although rare-earth doped optical fiber based devices are now finding important uses in many other scientific and industrial areas (for example, medicine, sensing, the military, and material processing). Such wide commercial interest has provided a strong incentive for innovative fiber designs, alternative glass compositions, and novel fabrication processes. A prerequisite for the ongoing progress of this research field is developing the capacity to provide high resolution information about the rare-earth dopant distribution profiles within the optical fibers. This paper constitutes a comprehensive review of the imaging techniques that have been utilized in the analysis of the distribution of the rare-earth ion erbium within the core of optical fibers.
authors.affiliation: Optical Technology Research Laboratory, College of Engineering and Science, Victoria University, P.O. Box 14428, Melbourne, VIC 8001, Australia.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sidiroglou
authors.affiliation: School of Physics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.affiliation: Optical Technology Research Laboratory, College of Engineering and Science, Victoria University, P.O. Box 14428, Melbourne, VIC 8001, Australia.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Baxter
mesh_terms: D000669:Amplifiers, Electronic; D004871:Erbium; D007834:Lasers; D008674:Metals, Rare Earth; D055100:Optical Fibers
chemical_list: D008674:Metals, Rare Earth; D004871:Erbium