Research and development of new neodymium laser glasses

Dongbing He,Yajun Ding,Liyan Zhang,Lin Chen,Qianwen Yin,Shuai Kang,Lili Hu

doi:10.1017/hpl.2016.46

Abstract

This work presents a brief introduction on three kinds of newly developed $\text{Nd}^{3+}$ -doped laser glasses in Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM), China. Two $\text{Nd}^{3+}$ -doped phosphate glasses with lower thermal expansion coefficient and thermal shock resistance 4 times higher than that of N31 glass are developed for laser processing. Nd:Silicate and Nd:Aluminate glasses with peak emission wavelength at 1061 and 1065 nm, effective emission bandwidth of 34 and 50 nm, respectively, are developed for Exawatt-class laser system application. Fluorophosphate glasses with low nonlinear refractive index ( $n_{2}=0.6{-}0.86$ ) and long fluorescence lifetime ( $430{-}510~\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{s}$ ) are investigated for the purpose of decreasing B integral in high-power laser system. The properties of all these glasses are presented and compared with those of commercial neodymium laser glasses.

Highlights

Due to its good spectroscopic properties, high solubility to rare earth ions, large damage threshold and easier to be produced with large size, Nd3+-doped phosphate glasses are widely used as gain media for high-peak-power lasers for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research[1,2,3]
The stimulated emission cross section and radiative lifetime for the 4F3/2 → 4I11/2 transition are calculated by the J–O theory based on measured refractive index of glass, ion concentration of rare earth ions as well as absorption and fluorescence spectra[15]
It indicates that emission peak wavelengths of Nd3+ ions at three different glasses change within 8–12 nm range, which provides the laser glass a solution to the mixed glass technique for EW laser system

Summary

Introduction

Due to its good spectroscopic properties, high solubility to rare earth ions, large damage threshold and easier to be produced with large size, Nd3+-doped phosphate glasses are widely used as gain media for high-peak-power lasers for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research[1,2,3]. In this laser system with Million Joules energy output, laser glass must bear high energy density above 10 J cm−2 at 1053 nm wavelength. The compositions, main properties and applications of these neodymium laser glasses have been discussed

Working principle

Silico-phosphate neodymium laser glasses with high thermal shock resistance

Fluorophosphate glass with low nonlinear refractive index

Findings

Conclusion