Yb: Yag Crystal Growth And Laser Performance Study

The laser diode pump solid-state lasers(DPssl) was a milestone in the history of laser development. It was a revolution to lamp pump solid-state lasers. Because it combines semicondoctor with solid-state lasers, the DPSSL possess the merits of both semicondoctor with solid-state lasers and forms the high performance all solid-state laser. It has the properties of high pumping efficiency, stable output power, long life-time(a few ten thousand hours) and all solid state. DPSSL have found many important application fields e.g. in range finder, control and guide, laser radar, material processing, opical communication, medicine.The first ytterbium-doped yttrium-aluminum garnet (Yb:YAG) laser action was reported back in 1965 using a lamp-pumped rod at 77 K. Because of poor spectral overlap of the lamp with the the trivalent ytterbium ion(Yb3+) absorption band, the efficiency was very low. Lamp-pumped Nd:YAG lasers fared better due to the multiple pump bands of neodymium. As a result, Yb-doped crystals languished in the shadow of Nd:YAG and other laser media for several decades waiting for high-power spectrally bright pump sources.Along with developing of the commercial availability of high-power InGaAs laser diode in the 1990s, the advantage of Yb:YAG suitable for the LD pumped high power solid-state lasers was realized. The kilowatt-class laser output have been realized using Yb:YAG crystal component by diode-pumped. And the Yb:YAG laser system became a important way to obtain high efficient, and high-average-power solid laser in the...