Novel glasses and glass-ceramics for broadband optical amplification

Optical fiber amplifier plays an important role in the optical communication system. Recently, considerable effort has been devoted to develop optical fiber amplifiers which can be used to produce optical gains at different communication bands. In this paper, we review recent research progress on the development of novel materials for optical amplification. We will introduce Bi-doped glasses and transparent Ni
²⁺
-doped glass-ceramics, which are very promising for the realization of ultrabroad band optical amplification.