Growth and spectroscopic properties of Yb0. 1Gd1. 8La0· 1SiO5 crystal: A promising new laser material for ultrashort laser
Recently, in the field of femtosecond lasers, an intense interest has been aroused for Yb3+-doped laser crystals which are able to be pumped directly by semiconductor laser. In this work, a novel Yb3+-doped mixed laser crystal Yb0.1Gd1.8La0·1SiO5 (Yb:GLSO) crystal with high-quality was grown successfully by Czochralski method. Raman spectrum confirmed that the Yb:GLSO has highly disordered crystal structure. The large absorption cross section (0.70 × 10−20 cm2) of Yb:GLSO crystal at around 975 nm indicates the crystal can be pumped efficiently by the commercialized InGaAs laser diode. The stimulated emission cross section at 1030 nm was calculated to be 0.7 × 10−20 cm2 and the bandwidth of the emission peak was determined as high as 175 nm. Positive gain cross sections were appeared at 1030, 1045 and 1088 nm when inversion ratio higher than 0.2. All these results suggest that Yb:GLSO crystal is a very promising novel laser material for realizing tunable solid-state and ultra-short pulsed lasers with LD pumping.