Abstract
The technology of hot-pressed Cr(2+):ZnSe ceramic preparation is reported. Comparative gain-switched lasing of hot-pressed ceramic and CVD grown Cr(2+):ZnSe samples with slope efficiencies up to 10% and output energies up to 2 mJ were demonstrated. This is a milestone in the development of future large scale mid-IR laser systems based on ceramic TM(2+):II-VI materials. This evolving technology has excellent potential as media for practical low cost, high power mid-IR laser applications.
Highlights
There is a growing demand for affordable, compact, room temperature and broadly tunable mid-infrared laser sources
The objective of this study is to demonstrate that hot-pressed ceramics are a promising and viable “alternative route” for the synthesis of large-scale mid-IR laser media based on chromium doped ZnSe
The reported fabrication process of an optical material based on hot-pressed Cr2+:ZnSe ceramic with an optical quality was sufficient for the first demonstration of gain-switched lasing in the mid-IR
Summary
There is a growing demand for affordable, compact, room temperature and broadly tunable mid-infrared (mid-IR) laser sources. Page et al.[2] performed detailed spectroscopic studies of several II-VI chalcogenide hosts with different divalent transitional metal ions (TM2+) dopants as potential mid-IR laser materials These materials have many advantages including near unity fluorescence quantum efficiency at room temperature, high heat conductivity (0.18W cm-1 K-1), high gain cross section, and no excited state absorption. Cr:ZnS [3,4], and Cr:ZnSe [5,6,7,8,9] laser demonstrations over the 2-3 μm spectral region in CW, free-running long pulse, Q-switched and mode-locked regimes of operation have been reported in many cases for both single crystal and polycrystalline hosts These sources have a variety of applications, such as eyesafe medical laser sources, eye-safe laser radar (LIDAR), remote sensing of atmospheric constituents, optical communication, and numerous military applications such as target designation, obstacle avoidance and infrared counter measures
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