The Characteristics Of Composite Multifunctional Laser Cavity Based On Nd³⁺ Doped Plzt Electrooptic Ceramic

Lasers are playing an irreplaceable role in the research and the application ofmany aspects, such as military, medical, communication, detection and industry.Many researchers pay attention to explore new products and optimize the lasersperformance for this. Our human beings never stop seeking new ways to improve thepower, shorten the pulse, and reduce the size of lasers. All these arouse our passion onresearching the characteristics of composite multifunctional laser cavity based onlanthanum-modifed lead zirconate titanate (PLZT) ceramics.PLZT electro-optic ceramic is relaxation ferroelectric material, which showsmany properties. International researchers and our team have found and reportedmany interesting phenomenon, such as electro-optic, optical amplification,photovoltaic, pyro-electric, optoenergy storage, ferroelectric and piezoelectricproperty. Many multifunction devices have been made with PLZT. All these indicatethat PLZT can be a promising candidate for laser material. So, it is an interesting topicin exploiting new kind lasers, especially multifunctional lasers based on PLZT. Thestudy of the properties of PLZT electro-optical ceramics lasers was carried out in thispaper.We built the composite multifunctional laser cavity using PLZT successfully andthen studied the electro-optical Q-switch, pumping beam Q-switch andthe impact of pump light on the mode transformation of the laser in detail.About the Q-switch, we find two ways to control the laser output intensity byapplying electric filed and exposuring the sample with pumping beam, respectively. Inorder to control the Q of lasers, additional Q-switch devices are necessary in thetraditional Q-switch lasers, which restricts minimizing of size and the enhancement ofthe power of lasers. In this paper, we confirmed the excellent electro-optical effect ofPLZT ceramics and further more the possibility of the use of PLZT as laser gainmedium, which indicates that PLZT ceramics helps the integration of the gain and theQ-switch. This also simplifies the structure of electro-optical lasers. A new try aboutthe Q-switch was carried out and the laser power was successfully controlled by thepumping beam. The Q-switch by the pumping beam is related to many physicalmechanisms, such as optical amplification, photovoltaic and pyro-electric effect,which assists to know better about PLZT electro-optical ceramics. On the other hand, the pumping beam will induce the laser mode transformation, which affects the laserquality significantly. We found that the facula interior structure and the intensitydistribution changed a lot when the pumping beam worked. The physical mechanismof this phenomenon was analysed to forward improve the laser quality.