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Pulsed laser deposition of Yb:Y2O3 planar waveguide lasers

Pulsed laser deposition of Yb:Y2O3 planar waveguide lasers
Pulsed laser deposition of Yb:Y2O3 planar waveguide lasers
Rare earth-doped sesquioxides, particularly yttria (Y2O3), scandia (Sc2O3) and lutetia (Lu2O3), are very promising materials for high power laser applications due to their excellent combination of thermal, optical and spectroscopic properties. These simple cubic crystals have been successfully doped with rare earth elements such as Yb, Tm and Er, but are challenging to grow as bulk crystals, due to their high melting points (~2400°C).
Using pulsed laser deposition, we have grown both single and multilayer Yb-doped crystalline yttria waveguides on 1 cm2 YAG substrates. A multilayer sample with a 3 µm Y2O3 layer either side of a 6 µm Yb:Y2O3 doped region gave a maximum output power of 1.2 W at 1030 nm, for ~10.5 W of diode pump power. This waveguide design provides significantly higher gain for the fundamental waveguide mode than for higher order modes, enabling efficient multimode pumping whilst favouring diffraction limited output. The maximum observed slope efficiency was 22% (with respect to absorbed power), using a simple quasi-monolithic plane-plane resonator cavity with a 30%R output coupler. With no active cooling, even at these high pump powers, no sign of thermal effects in the waveguide have been observed, confirming the excellent thermal properties of this material.
We will discuss these first results together with further experiments that will be performed with an optimised cavity length to achieve higher output power, lower threshold and greater slope efficiency.
Parsonage, T.L.
652160d8-72de-4846-a644-e9de62276706
Beecher, S.J.
b3664adc-d6b5-4a5a-a09a-8e1415c6d3f5
Sloyan, K.
5b66c8be-437e-467f-aeb0-5a742eea5abf
Mackenzie, J.I.
1d82c826-fdbf-425b-ac04-be43ccf12008
Eason, R.W.
e38684c3-d18c-41b9-a4aa-def67283b020
Parsonage, T.L.
652160d8-72de-4846-a644-e9de62276706
Beecher, S.J.
b3664adc-d6b5-4a5a-a09a-8e1415c6d3f5
Sloyan, K.
5b66c8be-437e-467f-aeb0-5a742eea5abf
Mackenzie, J.I.
1d82c826-fdbf-425b-ac04-be43ccf12008
Eason, R.W.
e38684c3-d18c-41b9-a4aa-def67283b020

Parsonage, T.L., Beecher, S.J., Sloyan, K., Mackenzie, J.I. and Eason, R.W. (2014) Pulsed laser deposition of Yb:Y2O3 planar waveguide lasers. Materials Research Society Spring Meeting E-MRS '14, , Lille, France. 26 - 30 May 2014.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Poster)

Abstract

Rare earth-doped sesquioxides, particularly yttria (Y2O3), scandia (Sc2O3) and lutetia (Lu2O3), are very promising materials for high power laser applications due to their excellent combination of thermal, optical and spectroscopic properties. These simple cubic crystals have been successfully doped with rare earth elements such as Yb, Tm and Er, but are challenging to grow as bulk crystals, due to their high melting points (~2400°C).
Using pulsed laser deposition, we have grown both single and multilayer Yb-doped crystalline yttria waveguides on 1 cm2 YAG substrates. A multilayer sample with a 3 µm Y2O3 layer either side of a 6 µm Yb:Y2O3 doped region gave a maximum output power of 1.2 W at 1030 nm, for ~10.5 W of diode pump power. This waveguide design provides significantly higher gain for the fundamental waveguide mode than for higher order modes, enabling efficient multimode pumping whilst favouring diffraction limited output. The maximum observed slope efficiency was 22% (with respect to absorbed power), using a simple quasi-monolithic plane-plane resonator cavity with a 30%R output coupler. With no active cooling, even at these high pump powers, no sign of thermal effects in the waveguide have been observed, confirming the excellent thermal properties of this material.
We will discuss these first results together with further experiments that will be performed with an optimised cavity length to achieve higher output power, lower threshold and greater slope efficiency.

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More information

e-pub ahead of print date: May 2014
Venue - Dates: Materials Research Society Spring Meeting E-MRS '14, , Lille, France, 2014-05-26 - 2014-05-30
Organisations: Optoelectronics Research Centre

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 367600
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/367600
PURE UUID: a0eb86d8-66d1-4952-b735-a1dfbd8cefb8
ORCID for J.I. Mackenzie: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3355-6051
ORCID for R.W. Eason: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9704-2204

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 06 Sep 2014 13:30
Last modified: 07 Feb 2023 02:42

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Contributors

Author: T.L. Parsonage
Author: S.J. Beecher
Author: K. Sloyan
Author: J.I. Mackenzie ORCID iD
Author: R.W. Eason ORCID iD

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