Laser Heated Pedestal Growth Of Nd-Doped Oxide Crystals For Diode Pumping

An overview of FIBERTEK's program to explore new Nd-doped materials better suited for diode pumping than Nd:YAG is presented. The primary drawback of Nd:YAG, the most often employed diode-pumped solid state laser material, is a very narrow absorption band at the Al1-xGaxAs diode emission wavelength. Stringent (i.e. expensive) requirements on diode array manufacturing and temperature control standards are required for optimum diode pumped solid state lasing. The purpose of this investigation is to study materials with much broader absorption bands resonant with the 810 nm diode emission. A wide variety of crystals have been produced via laser heated pedestal growth during this effort which include melilites, garnets, and several rare earth silicates. These materials have been characterized using absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy, as well as with fluorescence lifetime measurements.

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