Lasing characteristics of heavily doped single-crystal Fe:ZnSe

• Published in: Applied physics. B, Lasers and optics Lasers and optics, 2019-09, Vol.125 (9), p.1-7, Article 173
• Main Authors: Antonov, V. A., Davydov, A. A., Firsov, K. N., Gavrishchuk, E. M., Kononov, I. G., Kurashkin, S. V., Podlesnykh, S. V., Raspopov, N. A., Zhavoronkov, N. V.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied physics; Bridgman method; Crystal growth; Crystals; Engineering; Ferrous ions; Ion concentration; Lasers; Optical Devices; Optical pumping; Optics; Photonics; Physical Chemistry; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Quantum Optics; Single crystals; Zinc selenide
• ISSN: 0946-2171; 1432-0649
• DOI: 10.1007/s00340-019-7288-7

Characteristics of a Fe:ZnSe laser are studied at room temperature. The laser active elements are heavily doped single crystals with the Fe 2 + ion concentration n = 0.64 × 10 19 - 5.7 × 10 19 cm - 3 , grown from melt by the Bridgman method. The generated energy of 870 mJ is obtained at the total efficiencies with respect to the absorbed and incident energies η abs = 43 % and η inc ≈ 35 % , respectively. The laser slope efficiency with respect to the absorbed energy is η slope ≈ 50 % . In a heavily doped active element with the Fe 2 + concentration n = 5.7 × 10 19 cm - 3 , in which the medium excitation depth is just a part of the total element dimension along the optical axis (the element is completely non-transparent for the pumping radiation), the radiation spectrum of the Fe:ZnSe laser shifts to the long-wavelength range by more than 300 nm as compared to spectra of the laser on crystals excited along the whole element length. It is shown that Fe:ZnSe lasers on heavily doped single-crystal elements can be efficiently excited by a radiation of a Cr:ZnSe laser without tuning the spectrum of the latter to the longer wavelength range.