Abstract
Since the discovery of laser action in Cr: forsterite in 1988, there have been a series of new tunable solid-state lasers developed based on the Cr4+ ion. In contrast to the more common Cr3+-based lasers, the Cr4+ lasers operate at longer wavelengths, currently extending from about 1.1 to 1.9 μm. The cw output powers of these lasers has exceeded 2 W for room- temperature operation when pumped by a 7 W NdfYAG laser. In addition to providing a new broadly tunable spectroscopic source, these lasers have been mode-locked to generate femtosecond pulses, and may possibly serve as optical amplifiers. There are some constraints that need to be improved, however, before the Cr4+ lasers become widely used. These constraints include significant nonradiative relaxation of excited states, relatively low gain/length, and limited tuning ranges due to excited-state absorption.
© 1996 Optical Society of America
PDF ArticleMore Like This
S. B. Mirov, V. V. Fedorov, I. S. Moskalev, S. Vasilyev, D. V. Martyshkin, M. S. Mirov, and V. P. Gapontsev
JTh2A.64 Advanced Solid State Lasers (ASSL) 2013
R. R. Alfano, A. Seas, and V. Petričević
WNN.3 OSA Annual Meeting (FIO) 1993
V. Petricevic and R. R. Alfano
WZ.2 OSA Annual Meeting (FIO) 1993