Abstract

The Cr⁴⁺:YAG material with its broad absorption band centered at 1 µm and luminescence band allowing laser wavelength tuning over the range of 1 34 - 1.6 µm is of great interest for various laser applications The excited state absorption at pump wavelength (ESA) is one of the factors limiting Cr⁴⁺:YAG laser efficiency and increasing the threshold There is a significant spread in reported values of ${\sigma }_p{}^{\text{ESA}}$ in the literature. One usually measures ESA using a standard pump-probe technique.

© 2000 IEEE