New phosphate glasses have been developed in order to incorporate high rare-earth ions concentrations. These glasses present a great chemical stability and a high optical quality. The phosphate glass network is open, very flexible, with a linkage of the tetrahedrons very disordered and contains a larger number of non-bridging oxygens (66%). The great stability and resistance against crystallization associated with the possibility to incorporate high doping concentration of rare-earth ions in these phosphate glasses make them very good candidates for the realization of ultra short single mode amplifiers with a high gain at 1.55 mu m. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.