Steffen Reichel

Optical glass and glass ceramic historical aspects and recent developments: a Schott view

Since the time of Galilei 400 years ago the progress of optical systems was restricted due to the lack of optical glass types with different dispersion properties and due to poor material quality. With the work of Otto Schott, which started 125 years ago, glass became a tailorable, highly reproducible and homogeneous material, thus enabling systematic design of optical systems. The demand for new glass types is still going on as well as the requirement for ever tighter tolerances and their proofs. New measurement methods provide deeper insight in the material properties. Developments in processing allow new optical elements to be designed, further advancing technology. This also holds for zero-expansion glass ceramics, another key enabling material for optical systems. This publication highlights some milestones in the history of optical glass and glass ceramics, comments on present day glass development as well as new optical elements and measurement methods and provides some new information on the materials’ properties.

Effects of nonlinear dispersion in EDFA's on optical communication systems

The signal-induced change of the refractive index in an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) causes a phase modulation imposed on a signal when passing the EDFA. In this paper, we apply our extended EDFA model on an optical communication system. The model includes this phase modulation, by including the nonlinear dispersion in an EDFA, and the spontaneous emission noise. The influence of these effects on an optical communication system is examined by means of Q-factor and eye diagram. We assume an intensity modulated-direct detection (IM-DD) system operating at 193 THz (1552.5 nm) with a bit rate of 10 Gb/s in the anomalous dispersion regime and a total fiber length of 500 km. The fibers are assumed to be dispersion shifted ones, EDFAs are used to compensate for the fiber loss. By numerical simulation we obtain results for the influence of the phase modulation (nonlinear dispersion) due to the signal induced change of the refractive index in an EDFA and the spontaneous emission noise at different input peak powers. Neglecting the signal-induced change of the refractive index strongly underestimates the Q-factor in the anomalous dispersion regime. Therefore it should be included for reliable system simulations. This can be done with the numerical model presented here.

Planar erbium-doped waveguide amplifiers in glasses: rigorous theory and experimental investigations

By applying a rigorous physical and mathematical treatment, a powerful algorithm for the numerical description of planar erbium-doped waveguide amplifiers has been developed. The model includes spectral resolved absorption as well as stimulated and spontaneous emission. In addition arbitrary refractive index and erbium profiles can be handled. The algorithm was checked with commercially available codes for fiber amplifiers and experimental data on planar waveguide amplifiers.

Optical Materials and Their Properties

This chapter provides an extended overview on todayʼs optical materials, which are commonly used for optical components and systems. In Sect. 5.1 the underlying physical background on light–matter interaction is presented, where the phenomena of refraction (linear and nonlinear), reflection, absorption, emission and scattering are introduced. Sections 5.2–5.8 focus on the detailed properties of the most common types of optical materials, such as glass, glass ceramics, optoceramics, crystals, and plastics. In addition, special materials displaying “unusual nonlinear” or “quasi-nonreversible” optical behavior such as photorefractive or photorecording solids are described in Sect. 5.10. The reader could use this chapter as either a comprehensive introduction to the field of optical materials or as a reference text for the most relevant material information.

Optical glass: refractive index change with wavelength and temperature

With the catalog of 1992 SCHOTT introduced two formulae each with six parameters for a better representation of the refractive index of optical glasses. The Sellmeier-equation improved the characterization of dispersion at room temperature and the Hoffmann equation that of its temperature dependence. Better representation had been expected because both formulae were derived from general dispersion theory. The original publication of Hoffmann et al. from 1992 contains first results on the accuracy of the fits. The extended use of the formulae has led to a collection of data allowing reviewing the adequacy of the Sellmeier-equation approach on a much broader basis. We compare fitted refractive index values with measured values for all wavelengths used at our precision refractive index goniometer. Data sets are available for specific melts of the four representative glass types N-BK7, N-FK5, LF5 and IRG2. For some materials, the optical glass N-LAF21, the IR glass IRG2 and the crystal CaF2, several sets of data for the temperature dependence of the refractive index are available thus giving evidence for the variation of these properties among melts of the same material.

Optical glass with tightest refractive index and dispersion tolerances for high-end optical designs

In high end optical designs the quality of the optical system not only depends on the chosen optical glasses but also on the available refractive index and Abbe number tolerances. The primary optical design is based on datasheet values of the refractive index and Abbe number. In general the optical position of the delivered glass will deviate from the catalog values by given tolerances due to production tolerances. Therefore in many cases the final optical design needs to be modified based on real glass data. Tighter refractive index and Abbe number tolerances can greatly reduce this additional amount of work. The refractive index and Abbe number of an optical glass is a function of the chemical composition and the annealing process. Tight refractive index tolerances require not only a close control and high reliability of the melting and fine annealing process but also best possible material data. These data rely on high accuracy measurement and accurate control during mass production. Modern melting and annealing procedure do not only enable tight index tolerances but also a high homogeneity of the optical properties. Recently SCHOTT was able to introduce the tightest available refractive index and Abbe number tolerance available in the market: step 0.5 meaning a refractive index tolerance of +/- 0.0001 and an Abbe number tolerance of +/- 0.1%. This presentation describes how the refractive index depends on the glass composition and annealing process and describes the requirements to get to this tightest refractive index and Abbe number tolerance.

Advanced astronomical filter design: challenges, strategy, and results to meet current and future requirements

The Observatorio Astrofisico de Javalambre in Spain will conduct an all-sky astronomical survey using multi-bands, where optical filters are needed. These filters are narrow bandpass steep edge filters (FWHM = 14.5 nm) in a spectrum between 390 to 920 nm with 10.0 nm steps. In order to fulfill the demanding requirements for final scientific image quality and transmitted wavefront error a new white-light Shack Hartmann sensor and difficult refractive index measurements of the sub-assembly were needed. In addition due to the spectral requirements the design and manufacturing of the filters were pushed at its technological limit.

V-block refractometer for monitoring the production of optical glasses

Highly chromatic corrected optical systems rely on optical glasses with precise optical positions represented by refractive index and Abbe number. A modern production of optical glasses requires an economical, fast and accurate way of monitoring its fabrication. We demonstrate that an automated Hilger-Chance type refractometer fulfills all these needs. Therefore the uncertainty of a set of optical glasses is analyzed on the basis of a high number and long time reproducibility measurements. It turns out that the standard deviations after several hundreds of measurements taken over almost an decade in refraction is better than 10-5 in refraction and 0.02% in dispersion.

Narrow bandpass steep edge optical filter for the JAST/T80 telescope instrumentation

The Observatorio Astrofisico de Javalambre in Spain observes with its JAST/T80 telescope galaxies in the Local Universe in a systematic study. This is accomplished with a multi-band photometric all sky survey called Javalambre Photometric Local Universe Survey (J-PLUS). A wide field camera receives the signals from universe via optical filters. In this presentation the development and design of a narrow bandpass steep edge filter with wide suppression will be shown. The filter has a full width half maximum in the range of 13-15 nm (with <1 nm tolerance) with central wavelengths in the range 350-860nm and an average transmission larger than 90% in the passband. Signals beyond the passband (blocking range) have to be suppressed down to 250nm and up to 1050nm (spectral regime), where a blocking of OD 5 (transmission < 10-5) is required. The edges have to be steep for a small transition width from 5% to 80%. The spectral requirements result in a large number of layers which are deposited with magnetron sputtering. The transmitted wavefront error of the optical filter must be less than lambda/2 over the 100mm aperture and the central wavelength uniformity must be better than +/- 0.4% over the clear aperture. The filter consists of optical filter glass and a coated substrate in order to reach the spectral requirements. The substrate is coated with more than 120 layers. The total filter thickness was specified to be 8.0mm. Results of steep edge narrow bandpass filters will be demonstrated fulfilling all these demanding requirements.

Advanced Optical Components

This chapter describes a selection of advanced optical components including the underlying physical principles, production techniques and already existing or possible future applications.