Preparation and thermal optimization of the proton-implanted high-gain Nd3+-doped laser glass waveguide

In this work, the high-gain Nd3+-doped laser glass was chosen as the target material, and the optical waveguide was formed on the glass by the H+ ion implantation under the conditions of a 8.0 × 1016-ions cm−2 fluence and a 0.4 MeV energy. The post-annealing at 200 °C for 1 h was applied to improve the optical quality of the waveguide. A metallographic microscope was used to detect changes in morphology caused by implanted ions in the high-gain Nd3+-doped laser glass. The characteristics of the ion-implanted high-gain Nd3+-doped laser glass optical waveguide, such as the dark-mode profiles and the near-field intensity distributions, were measured by experimental instruments including a prism coupler and an end-coupling system. The effects of nuclear energy loss of implanted ions on the refractive index variation of the substrate were analyzed by the reflectivity calculation method. The interaction mechanism of implanted protons with the high-gain Nd3+-doped laser glass was discussed by the SRIM 2013 code. It lays a theoretical and experimental basis for the development of high-gain Nd3+-doped glass waveguide lasers and amplifiers.