Abstract
The demonstration of Co:MgF2 laser operation with the crystal at or near room-temperature [1] opened up the possible use of the laser in applications outside of the laboratory. The upper- state lifetime of the Co:MgF2 laser transition reduces rapidly with increasing temperature because of thermally activated multiphonon relaxation. All the initial studies of the Co:MgF2 system were done with the crystal cooled to cryogenic temperatures, in order to maintain life-times in the msec range [2,3]. At room temperature the lifetime is less than 40 usee, but efficient pulsed operation can be obtained if the pump source is a normal-mode 1320-nm Nd:YAG laser. In the first reported room-temperature experiments the Co:MgF2-laser output energies were limited to 70 mJ by the available energy from the pump laser [1]. In the work discussed here we have assembled a high-energy pump source and have been able to increase the Co:MgF2 laser output energy by more than an order-of-magnitude.
© 1992 Optical Society of America
PDF ArticleMore Like This
D. WELFORD and PETER F. MOULTON
ME5 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO:S&I) 1988
Burt C. Johnson, Peter F. Moulton, A. Mooradian, and M. Rosenbluh
WC2 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO:S&I) 1984
B. C. Johnson, M. Rosenbluh, P. F. Moulton, and A. Mooradian
FC1 International Conference on Ultrafast Phenomena (UP) 1984