Thulium-doped glass has recently been highlighted as a potential candidate for amplifiers in a new telecommunications window, due to its potential for strong gain across a broad bandwidth in the 2-micron regime [1]. However, the use of such technology in a silicon or planar platform has received much less attention [2,3]. Lack of on-chip lasers is an obstacle to progress in silicon photonics with much research focused on mounting processed III-V lasers, bonding gain material, or the deposition of gain material onto SOI wafers.
