Non-isothermal bleaching of Yb–Li co-doped silica fibers

In this work, non-isothermal bleaching of Yb–Li co-doped fiber was investigated. The Yb–Li co-doped fiber was beneficial to reduce the photodarkening-induced excess loss and had no bad effect on the temperature of thermal bleaching (TB). Photodarkened fibers were bleached with different temperature ramp rates. The higher the ramp rate, the higher the complete bleaching temperature. The activation energy of the bleaching of Yb/Al/Li fiber was calculated by fitting, which was similar to that of an Yb-doped fiber. These observations are helpful in revealing the relationship between the mechanism of Li ion co-doping and TB.