Abstract
Since the developent of the Ti3*:Al,O3 laser (tunable in the 700nm - 1000nm range) much research has been done on tunable solid-state lasers for shorter neighbouring wavelengths. However, non of them has yet been successful, mostly because of strong excited state absorption at the pump or laser wavelength. An interesting candidate for an active laser center in the spectral range below 700nm is the Mn3+ ion. The crystal field splitting of its energy levels (in cubic approximation) is described by the Tanabe-Sugano diagram for the d4 electron condigurations, shown in Fig. 1. Although for a d4 electron system a large number of energy levels exists, only two of them are quintet states, ie the 5E group state and 5T2 excited state. Excited state absorption transitions from the 5T2 into higher lying levels are expected to cover a broad wavelength range; but all of these transitions are spin-forbidden, ie the excited state absorption cross section is much smaller than the emission cross section of the 5T, —> 5E transition. However, in this paper it will be shown, that excited state transistions from other metastable levels prevent laser action in Mn3+:Y3Al5O12(YAG).
© 1996 Optical Society of America
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