Measurement of the excited state absorption cross-section in Cr/sup 4+/:YAG using relaxation oscillations study

Summary form only given. The Cr/sup 4+/:YAG material with its broad absorption band centered at 1 /spl mu/m and luminescence band allowing laser wavelength tuning over the range of 1.34-1.6 /spl mu/m is of great interest for various laser applications. The excited state absorption at pump wavelength (ESA) is one of the factors limiting Cr/sup 4+/:YAG laser efficiency and increasing the threshold. There is a significant spread in reported values of /spl sigma//sub p//sup ESA/ in the literature. One usually measures ESA using a standard pump-probe technique. In this work we suggest an alternative method for measuring ESA using the relaxation oscillations study.