Abstract
Cr:YAG and Yb/Cr:YAG transparent ceramics containing Ca as charge counter element were fabricated by vacuum sintering technique using the co-precipitation synthesis of raw powders. Their spectral and luminescence properties as well as the influence of Cr3+ concentration on the optical properties of Yb,Cr:YAG ceramic were investigated. Results show the transmittance of 10at.% Yb, 0.25at.% Cr:YAG and 0.25at.% Cr:YAG reaches 83% at 1200nm and 81% at 1400nm, respectively. And the Yb,Cr:YAG ceramics exhibit a pore free structure with an average grain size of about 5μm. After annealing, most of Cr3+ ions transform into Cr4+. In the case of excitation wavelength of 440nm, a sharp emission peak of 694nm appeared in the Yb,Cr:YAG ceramic before annealing and the band enhanced with the increase of the Cr3+ concentration, which is attributed to the 4T2g−4A2g fluorescence transition. The emission spectrums and fluorescence decays manifest that both the luminescent intensity and the lifetimes of Yb,Cr:YAG are lower than Yb:YAG ceramic and the lifetimes of Yb,Cr:YAG and Yb:YAG are 0.93 and 2.38ms, respectively. This results demonstrate the existence of the ground state absorption of Cr4+ in the Yb,Cr:YAG ceramic. Experimental evidence proved that Yb,Cr:YAG transparent ceramics could be a potential material for passive self-Q-switched solid-state laser.
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