Effects of Neodymium Concentration on Optical Characteristics of Polycrystalline Nd:YAG Laser Materials |
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| Authors: | Akio Ikesue Kiichiro Kamata Kunio Yoshida |
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| Affiliation: | Technical Research Center, Krosaki Corporation, Kitakyushu City 806, Japan;Department of Materials Science and Technology, Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka City 940-21, Japan;Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka Institute of Technology, Osaka City 535, Japan |
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| Abstract: | A neodymium-doped yttrium-aluminum garnet (Y3A15O12, YAG) (Nd:YAG) ceramic that contained 0.3–4.8 at.% neodymium additives and exhibited nearly the same optical properties as those of a single crystal was fabricated by a solid-state reaction method using high-purity powders. Although the integrated absorption intensity of the 2H9/2+4F5/2 bands simply increased as the neodymium concentration in the YAG ceramics decreased, the fluorescence intensity of the 2.4 at.% Nd:YAG ceramic was the strongest among Nd:YAG ceramics with various neodymium concentrations and a 0.9 at.% Nd:YAG single crystal. An oscillation experiment was performed on a continuous-wave (cw) laser with a diode-laser exciting system using those ceramics and the single crystal. The oscillation threshold and slope efficiency in that analysis were 309 mW and 28%, respectively, for the 1.1 at.% Nd:YAG ceramics and 356 mW and 40%, respectively, for the 2.4 at.% Nd:YAG ceramics. The lasing characteristics of the ceramics in the present work were superior to those of a 0.9 at.% Nd:YAG single crystal that was fabricated by the Czochralski (Cz) method. |
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