The effect of particulate density on performance of waveguide lasers grown by pulsed laser deposition

Summary form only given. Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) has always been a potentially attractive method of fabricating waveguides due to low running and capital costs. The ability to quickly and easily grow stochiometric, epitaxial films of a large variety 15 of laser media makes it an almost ideal fabrication process. PLD has been avoided as a preferred method, however, due to the large number of particulates generated on the waveguides during growth. There has been no direct correlation however, between the number of particulates seen on the films and the losses generated. In this paper we report on the comparison between losses observed in a waveguide and particulate density. We shall also report the performance of a buried waveguide structure, in which the effects of particulates should prove less important. Using similar to conditions to those reported earlier, we have grown films of epitaxial [100] Nd:GdGG on a [100] YAG substrate.