Use of garnet crystals as laser hosts
Abstract
The use of gallate and vanadate garnets as hosts for new monovalent, divalent, and trivalent laser-active ions for tunable solid-state lasers is proposed. The spectroscopic and laser properties of Nd, Cr:GSAG with 1.0 at. pct Nd and 0.75 at. pct Cr are studied and the laser cross-section of Nd in GSAG is calculated as 2.2 x 10 to the -19th sq cm. The oscillation performance of Nd, Cr:GSAG is compared to that of Nd:YAG; Q-switching of GSAG was attained in both passive and active modes. A garnet host of Cu(+) is investigated for the vanadate garnet NaCa2Mg2V3O12; the fluorescence of monovalent Cu ions peaks near 530 nm and has a lifetime of 3.2 microsec. The color centers in YAG for undoped and Nd-doped crystals are examined.
- Publication:
-
Tunable Solid State Lasers for Remote Sensing
- Pub Date:
- 1985
- Bibcode:
- 1985tssl.proc..110D
- Keywords:
-
- Crystal Optics;
- Garnets;
- Laser Materials;
- Solid State Lasers;
- Tunable Lasers;
- Color Centers;
- Copper;
- Gallates;
- Vanadates;
- Lasers and Masers