Transmission properties of a new glass ceramic and doped with Co²⁺ as saturable absorber for 1.54 µm Er glass short pulse laser

Abstract

The preparation and characteristics of a new transparent glass ceramic were described. Crystal phase particles with nanometer size were successfully precipitated in glass matrix, which was confirmed to be one of indium aluminum zinc oxide compounds (In _xAl _yZn _zO). The presence of aluminum (Al) and indium (In) impurities in the zinc oxides (ZnO) crystal lattice leads to some changes of the carrier concentration in the material and then promote the sharply changes of transmission spectra in IR range wavelength. And subsequently, the IR cut-off edge blue shifted from 5.5 μm in base glass to 3 μm in transparent glass ceramic sample. Furthermore, passive Q switched 1.54 μm Er glass laser pulses with pulse energy of 10 mJ and pulse width of 800 ns were successfully obtained by using the cobalt doped transparent glass ceramic as a saturable absorber.

Keywords

glass-ceramics / infrared transmission / Co²⁺ doped / saturable absorber / Er glass laser

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