Wide-band tunable 2 µm lasers are sought for remote sensing, eye–safe lasers, laser processing of transparent plastics, medical therapy, ultra¬fast lasers (UFL), accelera¬tion of nuclear particles, and generation of visible output via harmonic conversion [1]. We have previously reported efficient lasing in Tm:Lu2O3 ceramic while tuning over 230-nm range in the vicinity of 2 µm and delivering up to 43 W QCW [2]. Tm:Lu2O3 ceramic gain material has a much lower saturation fluence than the traditionally used Tm:YLF and Tm:YAG materials, thus offering improved energy extraction. Ceramic construction offers size scalability and convenient fabrication of gain medium composites.
This paper reports on experimental evaluation of laser gain and q-switched output pulse energy in vicinity of 2-microns in Tm:Lu2O3 ceramic rod end-pumped by 796-nm diodes. Also included is the operation and spectral gain evaluation of a Tm:Lu2O3 ceramic edge-pumped disk laser with multi-passed extraction, which is seeded by the above end-pumped rod laser. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy grant number DE-SC0013762.
1. Drew A. Copeland, John Vetrovec, and Amar S. Litt, "Wide-Bandwidth Ceramic Tm:Lu2O3 Amplifier," SPIE 9834, (2016).
2. John Vetrovec, et al., "2-Micron Lasing in Tm:Lu2O3 Ceramic: Initial Operation," SPIE vol. 10511 (2018)
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