Growth and Characterization of Series Nd:Gd x La 1-x VO 4 x = 0.80, 0.60, 0.45) Crystals
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T. Chow Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong (Received 2 January 2001; accepted 12 December 2001)
In this paper, series crystals Nd:Gd0.8La0.2VO4, Nd:Gd0.6La0.4VO4, and Nd:Gd0.45La0.55VO4 were grown by the Czochralski method. The structure and lattice constants of the series crystals were measured. The morphology of Nd:Gd0.8La0.2VO4 is discussed, and it is composed of {100} and {101} simple forms. The thermal expansion and specific heat of the Nd:Gd0.8La0.2VO4 crystal were also measured. The absorption and emission spectra of the Nd:Gd0.8La0.2VO4 and Nd:Gd0.6La0.4VO4 crystals were measured at room temperature. The laser outputs at 1.06 and 1.34 m were determined when a crystal sample of Nd:Gd0.8La0.2VO4 was pumped by a laser diode at 808 nm, and the visible green and red laser outputs of the intracavity frequency double at 0.53 and 0.67 m were determined when nonlinear KTiOPO4 and LiB3O5 crystals were used.
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years laser crystals pumped by a laser diode (LD) have greatly attracted people’s attentions owing to the excellent properties of the lasers, such as having a compact structure, having all solid-state-performing infrared laser output, and producing a visible blue, green, or red laser output using a suitable nonlinear crystal. Many important applications can be also found in the military, industry, medical treatment, optical communications, and scientific research fields for those lasers. The applications result in people spending much time and money to optimize laser properties of current laser crystals by improving crystal quality and to keep on exploring new laser crystals with good laser properties. Among current laser crystals, the zircon structure neodymium-doped vanadate crystals, such as Nd:YVO41–6 and Nd:GdVO4,7–12,26,27 have been proved to be excellent laser crystals because of their good laser properties and high conductivity14,15,28 and now are widely used. In this article, we report the growth of the new series laser crystals Nd:Gd0.8La0.2VO4, Nd:Gd0.6La0.4VO4, and Nd:Gd0.45La0.55VO4 by the Czochralski method and measure the structures of the series crystals. The structure, morphology, and thermal a)
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J. Mater. Res., Vol. 17, No. 3, Mar 2002 Downloaded: 18 Mar 2015
properties of the series Nd:GdxLa1−xVO4 crystals are studied. The absorption and fluorescence spectra of Nd:Gd0.8La0.2VO4 and Nd:Gd0.6La0.4VO4 crystals are measured at room temperature, and the laser outputs of the Nd:Gd0.8La0.2VO4 crystal at 1.06 and 1.34 m and the double frequency output at 0.53 and 0.67 m using nonlinear KTP and LBO crystals are also determined, respectively. II. EXPERIMENTAL
Chemical compounds V 2 O 5 , Gd 2 O 3 , La 2 O 3 , and Nd2O3 with 99.99% purity were used to grow series Nd:GdxLa1−xVO4 (x ⳱ 0.80, 0.60, 0.45) crystals. These compounds were weighed according to the following formula: Nd0.015(GdxLa1−x)0.985VO
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