Solid-state Crystal Growth and Its Application to Fabricate Planar Waveguides

doi:10.15541/jim20170126

Abstract

Abstract:

The effect of different factors, i.e., annealing temperature, grain size, and dopant ion on the solid-state crystal growth (SSCG), was studied in this work. In the SSCG process induced by heat treatment, a single crystal absorbs grains near the bonding interface, forming a robust bond. Using this method, a planar waveguide (PWG) consisting of a core layer of 12at% Yb:YAG polycrystal (100 μm) was fabricated and cladded by two YAG single crystal layers. No Yb³⁺ ion diffusion was observed. The CW laser performance of the Yb:YAG PWG was investigated. A maximum power of 1.14 W with a slope efficiency of 16.09% was obtained in the plano-plano resonator, and a maximum power of 1.83 W with a slope efficiency of 9.59% was obtained in the three-mirror resonator. A tunable laser with a continuous output between 1027.5 nm and 1033.5 nm was realized.

Key words: solid-state crystal growth, planar waveguide, laser materials

CLC Number:

TQ174

GAN Qi-Jun, JIANG Ben-Xue, ZHANG Pan-De, JIANG Yi-Guang, YANG Chao, ZHANG Wen-Chao, LUO Da-Ping, LI Wen-Xue, ZHANG Long. Solid-state Crystal Growth and Its Application to Fabricate Planar Waveguides[J]. Journal of Inorganic Materials, 2018, 33(1): 107-112.

Figures/Tables 10

Fig. 1 Schematic of the fabrication of the planar wave guide based on YAG

Fig. 2 SEM images of the interfaces after annealing for 30 h at (a) 1770℃, (b) 1780℃ and (c) 1790℃, (d) photograph of showing the appearance of the YAG/Yb:YAG bilayer structure before annealing

Fig. 3 Morphologies of the interface of the YAG single crystal/YAG polycrystal structure ^(a) Optical micrograph (shown in the inset is the EBSD image); (b) SEM image; (c) EBSD image

Fig. 4 SEM images of the YAG/Yb:YAG bilayer structure with different grain sizes ^(a) 40 μm; (b) 20 μm

Fig. 5 SEM images of PWG upper interface (a), lower interface (b) and photograph (c) of the Yb:YAG PWG

Fig. 6 Concentration distribution of Yb3+ along the thickness of the YAG/Yb:YAG/YAG composite planar waveguide

Fig. 7 Experimental setup for the YAG/Yb:YAG/YAG composite planar waveguide CW laser^(a) Plano-plano resonator; (b) Three-mirror resonator

Fig. 8 CW laser performance of a plano-plano resonator for Yb:YAG PWG^(a) Average output power vs the absorbed pump power with OC of transmission = 10%; (b) Corresponding output spectrum

Fig. 9 CW laser performance of the three-mirror resonator for Yb:YAG PWG^(a) Average output power versus the absorbed pump power with an OC of transmission = 10%; (b) Corresponding output spectrum

Fig. 10 Tuning curve obtained for a Yb:YAG PWG laser with SF57

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