1st Edition
Crystalline Lasers Physical Processes and Operating Schemes
By the end of the 1970s, crystalline lasers were widely used in science, engineering, medicine, and technology. The types of lasers used have continued to grow in number to include newly discovered crystalline hosts, previously known compounds generating at other spectral wavelengths, and broadband tunable stimulated emission. This has led to the creation of an extremely promising new generation of crystalline lasers that are both highly efficient and more reliable. The major part of this book is devoted to describing multilevel operating laser schemes for stimulated emission excitation in insulating crystals doped with lanthanide ions.
The first part of Crystalline Lasers deals with the history of the physics and spectroscopy of insulating laser crystals. The chapters in the second part of the book present results from the study of Stark-energy levels of generating ions in laser crystals and their radiative and nonradiative intermanifold transition characteristics. This section includes extensive tabular data and reference information. Popular and novel operating schemes of crystalline lasers are covered in Part 3.
In the chapters in the fourth part of the book, the newest technologies in the physics and engineering of crystalline lasers are considered. The results of investigations into laser action under selective excitations, miniature crystalline lasers, and the properties of nonlinear activated laser crystals are presented and analyzed.
Crystalline Lasers summarizes and reviews the results of many years of research and studies of activator ions and multilevel operating laser schemes, and discusses exciting prospects of using these systems to create new types of crystalline lasers. This book will be of use to laser scientists and engineers, physicists, and chemical engineers.
Development of Crystal-Laser Physics (Short Historical Remarks)
Fluorine- and Oxygen-Containing Laser Crystalline Hosts and Their Activator Ions
Other Laser Crystals
Stimulated-Emission Channels of Activated Insulating Laser Crystals
Stimulated Emission 4fN-4fN and 4fN-15d1-4fN Channels of Ln3+ Ions
Laser Channels of Ln2+ and U3+ Ions
Laser Channels of Cr3+, Cr4+, Ti3+, and Mn5+ Ions
Laser Channels of TM2+ Activators
Crystalline Laser Hosts for Obtaining Generation of Ln3+ Activators at New Wavelengths
References
ENERGY LEVELS AND OPTICAL-TRANSITION INTENSITIES OF GENERATING ACTIVATORS IN INSULATING LASER CRYSTALS
Stark-Level Structure of Lasing Activator Ions
Basic Concepts of Modern Crystal-Field Theory
Stark-Level Energies of Generating Ions in Laser Insulating Crystals (Experimental Data)
References
Intensity of Radiative Transitions of Ln3+ Activators in Insulating Laser Crystals
Electric Dipole Transitions
Judd-Ofelt Intensity Parameters Wi
Magnetic Dipole Transitions
Spectroscopic-Quality Parameters of Insulating Laser Crystals with Ln3+ Activators
References
Multiphonon 4fN-4fN Nonradiative Transitions of Ln3+ Activators in Laser Crystals
Principal Mechanisms of the Modern Theory of Nonradiative Relaxation of Ln3+ Ions in Crystals
Energy-Gap Law - Dependence of WJJ¢ on DEJJ¢
References
MULTILEVEL OPERATING LASER SCHEMES FOR THE EXCITATION OF STIMULATED EMISSION IN ACTIVATED CRYSTALS
Cascade Operating Schemes for Crystalline Lasers
Cascade Laser Schemes for Crystals Doped with Ln3+ Activators
Features of Cascade Generation of the Ln3+ Ions in Crystals
Cross-Cascade Laser Schemes for Crystals Doped with Ln3+ Activators
References
Sensitizing, Deactivating, and Feed-Flowing Operating Schemes for Crystalline Lasers
Sensitizing Laser Schemes
Deactivating Laser Schemes
Feed-Flowing Laser Schemes
Laser Action of Unlike Ln3+ Ion-Doped Crystals
References
Stepwise Laser Operating Schemes for Crystals Doped with Ln3+ Activator Ions
Upconversion and Stimulated Emission of Ln3+ Ions in Crystals at High-Level Energy Excitation
Upconversion Operating Laser Schemes for Er3+ Ion-Doped Crystals
Operating Laser Schemes with Stepwise Absorption of Pump Quanta for YAlO3 and LiYF4 Crystals Doped with Er3+ Ions
References
Cross-Relaxation Operating Schemes for Crystalline Lasers
Cross-Relaxation Laser Operating Schemes with Quantum Efficiency Equal to 1
Cross-Relaxation Laser Operating Schemes with Quantum Efficiency Equal to 2
Cross-Relaxation Laser Operating Schemes with Quantum Efficiency Equal to 3
Three-Micron 5I6®ÿÿ5I7 Laser Channel of Ho3+ Ions in the BaYb2F8 Crystal
References
Laser Operating Schemes with Strong Depopulation of the Ground States of Generating Ln3+ Ions
Ground-State Lifting - a Way to Increase Crystalline-Laser Efficiency
Laser Action of Ln3+ Ions in Insulating Crystals Under Condition of Ground-State-Level Depletion
Photon-Avalanche Phenomena in Laser Crystals with Ln3+ Activators
References
NOVEL AND PROMISING TECHNOLOGIES IN THE PHYSICS AND TECHNIQUE OF CRYSTALLINE LASERS
New Generation of Crystalline Lasers
Laser Action of Crystals Doped with Ln3+ Ions under Selective Laser Pumping
Miniature Crystalline Lasers with High Density of Waveguiding Laser Pumping
Crystalline Lasers with Self-Frequency Conversion
Solar-Pumped Crystalline Lasers
References
Concluding Remarks
The Current State in Laser-Diode-Pumped Crystalline Laser Development (Table Data)
Up-to-Date Survey of Crystalline Upconversion Lasers (Table Data)
Praseodymium Crystalline Lasers for the Creation of "White" Laser Light
References
Appendix A: Crystalline Hosts and Lasing Ions
Index
Biography
Alexander A. Kaminskii received his first (PhD) and second doctor degrees and a full professor diploma in solid-state physics from the Institute of Crystallography of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1965, 1974 and 1981, respectively. Three years prior to and after graduation he worked as a junior scientist on the development of long-wave ruby lasers in the physics department of Moscow State University. In 1961 he joined the quantum electronics laboratory at the Nuclear Physics Institute of Moscow State University headed by Nobel Prize Laureate Professor Alexander M. Prokhorov. Here he began his long and continued basic research on the physics and spectroscopy of rare-earth doped insulating laser crystals. In 1965 he joined the Institute of Crystallography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he is currently head of the laser crystal physics laboratory. Dr. Kaminskii’s main interests have been concentrated on the search for and the investigation of new generating compounds and the development of new principles and operating schemes for crystalline lasers. He has discovered stimulated emission in more than one-half of all known laser crystals. Among these are many of the more commonly used laser crystals, numerous garnets, disordered fluoride and oxide compounds, families of praseodymium and ytterbium crystals, and several nonlinear compounds for self-frequency doubled and self-stimulated Raman scattering lasers. He has also proposed and developed many new operating schemes for crystalline lasers. Dr. Kaminskii introduced the physical background and pioneered the technique of stimlated-emission spectroscopy of activated crystals. He has authored more than 500 scientific publications on these subjects, including more than 40 review articles and 4 monographs. In 1993 Dr. Kaminskii was the recipient of the Rozhdestvensky Award in optics from the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1994 he received research prizes for senior scientists in solid-state physics and crystalline lasers from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany and from the Japapanese Institute for Promising Investigation. In 1994 he was also appointed as a Director of the Joint Open Laboratory for laser crystals and precise laser systems under the auspices of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Among other activities Dr. Kaminskii has presented many invited lectures and seminars on the physics and spectroscopy of laser crystals at universities and scientific centers worldwide. He has been a member of the organizing committees of numerous Russian and international conferences. Dr. Kaminskii is currently a member of the editorial board for the journals Physica Status Solidi (Germany), Material Science (Poland), and Quantum Electronics (Russia). He is also a member of the Scientific Council on Luminescence of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Optical Society of America, and the European Rare-Earth and Actinide Society, and a corresponding member of the Ettore Majorana International Center for Scientific Culture in Erice (Italy).
