Photo-annealing effect of gamma-irradiated erbium-doped fibre by femtosecond pulsed laser

In this work, a photo-annealing effect of gamma-irradiated erbium-doped glass fibre is investigated. Two commercial erbium-doped fibres (EDFs) with different doping concentrations were sealed inside a chamber with a cobalt-60 gamma source for 6 h to give an accumulated dose of 3.18 kGy. A tunable femtosecond pulsed laser with a repetition rate of 80 MHz was then used to pump EDF to generate 1550 nm fluorescence and green up-conversion emission, resulting in the annealing effect of the gamma-irradiated EDF. The fluorescence power of gamma-irradiated EDF with a moderate level of doping was almost returned to the initial state by photo-annealing, unlike that of a heavily doped EDF. This finding may facilitate the development of anti-irradiated superfluorescence fibre source for space navigation.