Title :
Thermal birefringence in Nd/sup 3+/-doped YAG ceramics
Author :
Shoji, Ichiro ; Sato, Yuuki ; Kurimura, Sunao ; Taira, Takunori ; Ikesue, A. ; Yoshida, Kenta
Author_Institution :
Laser Res. Center, Inst. for Molecular Sci., Okazaki, Japan
Abstract :
Summary form only given. Highly Nd/sup 3+/-doped ceramic YAG is promising for high-power and high-efficiency microchip lasers; its large absorption coefficient realized more than two times higher output power for a microchip of a 3.4 at.% Nd:YAG ceramic as compared with a same sized microchip of a Nd:YAG single crystal at the same input power. Moreover, the thermal conductivity of ceramic Nd:YAG is as high as single-crystal YAG even at high Nd/sup 3+/ concentration, which is twice that of YVO/sub 4/. In this work we have investigated thermal birefringence in Nd:YAG ceramics, which should be useful for power scaling.
Keywords :
absorption coefficients; birefringence; ceramics; micro-optics; neodymium; solid lasers; thermal conductivity; thermo-optical effects; Nd/sup 3+/-doped YAG ceramics; YAG:Nd/sup 3+/; YAl5O12:Nd; high-efficiency microchip lasers; high-power; highly Nd/sup 3+/-doped ceramic YAG; large absorption coefficient; output power; power scaling; thermal birefringence; thermal conductivity; Birefringence; Ceramics; Chemical lasers; Laser theory; Microchip lasers; Neodymium; Optical device fabrication; Power lasers; Pump lasers; Yagi-Uda antennas;
Conference_Titel :
Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2001. CLEO '01. Technical Digest. Summaries of papers presented at the Conference on
Conference_Location :
Baltimore, MD, USA
Print_ISBN :
1-55752-662-1
DOI :
10.1109/CLEO.2001.948167
