Color centers as active material for CW, broadly tunable IR lasers

Thesis/Dissertation · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1981

OSTI ID:6159123

Gellermann, W

Electron irradiation of alkali halide crystals, doped with a variety of molecular and atomic impurities, leads to a production of various defects with electron and vacancy trapping properties. The photochemical reactions of traps and color centers are investigated and optimized towards a production of defects with broad optical transitions, which allow an extension of the total tuning range of color center lasers into new wavelength regions. Using OH/sup -/, SH/sup -/ and Ag/sup +/-doped crystals, F/sub 2//sup +/- and F/sub 2//sup +/-like centers are stabilized in high concentrations in several host lattices. This leads for the first time to tunable cw laser operation over the 1.26 ..mu..m to 2.12 ..mu..m range with F/sub 2//sup +/-centers in NaCl, KCl and KBr and (F/sub 2//sup +/)/sub A/-centers in RbCl:Na/sup +/. In Tl/sup +/-doped crystals a new group of laser active F/sub A/-like color centers is found in six host lattices: NaCl, KCl, RbCl, KBr, RbBr and Rbl. In its first tested examples, KCl and KBr, broadly tunable cw laser operation over the 1.4 to 1.7 ..mu..m region is obtained. In contrast to F/sub 2//sup +/-center lasers, this new class of lasers allows stable operation without decay of output power even under extended operation periods.

• OSTI ID: 6159123
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
420300* -- Engineering-- Lasers-- (-1989)
ALKALI METAL COMPOUNDS
COLOR CENTERS
CRYSTAL DEFECTS
CRYSTAL DOPING
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
HALIDES
HALOGEN COMPOUNDS
INFRARED RADIATION
LASER MATERIALS
LASERS
MATERIALS
POINT DEFECTS
RADIATIONS
SOLID STATE LASERS
TRAPPING
VACANCIES