Room temperature Dy:YLF laser operation at 4.34 μm

Author

Barnes, Norman P. ; Allen, Roger E.

Author_Institution

NASA Langley Res Center, Hampton, VA, USA

Volume

27

Issue

2

fYear

1991

fDate

2/1/1991 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

277

Lastpage

282

Abstract

A Dy:YLF laser operating on the ⁶H_11/2 to ⁶H_13/2 transition at 4.34 μm and using a laser pumping scheme is reported. This pumping scheme is necessitated by the short upper-laser-level lifetime and the small effective stimulated-emission cross section. A suitable laser for this application is the Er:YLF laser operating at 1.73 μm. A simple model that approximates Dy:YLF laser performance well is presented. Results on laser performance, including a determination of the slope efficiency and threshold as a function of the output mirror reflectivity and a correlation of the pulse length with the laser output energy, are reported. Overall laser efficiency is found to be limited primarily by the ratio of the pump wavelength to laser output wavelength and the terminated four-level laser operation

Keywords

dysprosium; laser transitions; lithium compounds; optical pumping; solid lasers; yttrium compounds; 1.73 micron; 4.34 micron; LiYF4:Dy; LiYF4:Er; YLF:Dy laser operation; YLF:Er laser; laser output energy; laser output wavelength; laser performance; laser pumping scheme; output mirror reflectivity; pulse length; pump wavelength; short upper-laser-level lifetime; slope efficiency; small effective stimulated-emission cross section; terminated four-level laser operation; threshold; Absorption; Erbium; Laser excitation; Laser modes; Laser transitions; Optical materials; Pump lasers; Solid lasers; Spectroscopy; Temperature;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.78231

Filename

78231