Fabrication of heavily doped Nd:YAG transparent ceramics and their thin disc solid state laser performance

Abstract

Compared to the single crystal counterparts, the laser ceramic materials can achieve higher ion doping concentrations and thus have a considerable application potential in thin disc lasers as laser gain media. In this study, heavily doped Nd:YAG transparent ceramics with excellent optical quality were fabricated, and a watt level thin disc laser output with high efficiency without saturation was realised in 3.0 at.% Nd:YAG ceramic (500 μm thickness). However, the trends in transmission and laser performance of Nd:YAG transparent ceramics were inconsistent with the Nd3+ doping concentration owing to the sintering additive effect of the introduced Nd2O3, and the laser performance of a 2.5 at.% Nd:YAG transparent ceramics with 1.0 mm thickness was almost identical to that of 1.0 at.% samples. This study demonstrates that the ceramic laser gain medium is of great significance for miniaturising and integrating solid state lasers.