Recent developments in rare-earth-doped glasses

Recent developments in rare-earth (RE)-doped glasses are presented. The paper includes an overview of UV, blue, green and IR fluoride glass fiber lasers, together with the performances of RE optical amplifiers for the first, second, and third telecommunication windows. Spectroscopic results concerning low-phonon-energy sulfide and chloro-fluoride glasses for 1.3 mu m amplification are discussed. A special section is devoted to phosphate glass lasers with high thermal loading capability for high laser power applications at 1.03 mu m, 1.05 mu m and in the eye-safe optical domain at 1.54 mu m.