Abstract
Useful laser emission at 2.1 μm from trivalent holmium has been demonstrated in many host crystals. However, unlike the more common rare earth laser neodymium, trivalent holmium lacks strong absorption bands for pumping in the visible and near-IR. For this reason most of the work on holmium lasers has focused on sensitization with other ions. At densities of > 4 × 1020 cm−3, thulium has proved to be an effective sensitizer for holmium. High efficiency is achieved via a Tm/Tm cross-relaxation interaction which generates two excited state ions per pump photon.
© 1992 Optical Society of America
PDF ArticleMore Like This
S. R. Bowman, G. J. Quarles, and B. J. Feldman
ML15 Advanced Solid State Lasers (ASSL) 1992
R. J. Thrash and L. F. Johnson
ThB3 Compact Blue-Green Lasers (CBGL) 1992
Mark E. Storm and John P. Deyst
ML3 Advanced Solid State Lasers (ASSL) 1992