No abstract

This work reports continuous laser oscillation around 1.3 m at room temperature in Nd:YAG planar waveguides fabricated by MeV proton implantation. The performance of the waveguide lasers fabricated with different implantation parameters has been studied in terms of the threshold pump powers and slope efficiencies. The development of compact and efficient solid state lasers is becoming an important matter in the field of integrated optics. The waveguide configuration is necessary in applications such as optics communications and information technology due to its size and compatibility with semiconductor lasers and fiber optic technology.1 Optical waveguides doped with rare-earth ions can be used for the development of miniaturized lasers and amplifiers providing high slope efficiency and low pump thresholds.Ion beam implantation has proved to be an effective technique to fabricate optical waveguides in more than 60 materials.2 The damage caused by nuclear collisions during the implantation process reduces the physical density of the crystal, which results in a reduction of the refractive index. The low-density buried layer that is produced at the end of the ion track acts as an "optical barrier" that has a lower refractive index than the substrate.3 Thus, the region between this barrier and the surface is surrounded by regions of lower refractive index and can act as a waveguide. Nd:YAG was the first material in which such a structure was formed by ion implantation and where the suitability of this technique to fabricate waveguide lasers was demonstrated. 4 Laser oscillation in the cw regime in proton and carbon implanted Nd:YAG waveguides at 1064 nm has been recently reported, showing low pump thresholds and high stability.5 This work presents laser emission at 1338 nm obtained from proton-implanted waveguides, which corresponds to the second telecommunication window in silica optical fibers. Characteristics such as pump power thresholds and laser efficiencies are reported, and these data are compared with the performance of Nd:YAG waveguide lasers operating at 1.06 m.Two planar waveguides were fabricated by proton implantation in a 9SDH-2 Pelletron Accelerator using protons of several energies and different total doses. 6 Waveguide #1 was implanted with energies from 1.25 to 1 MeV at a total dose of 6 ϫ 10 6 ions/ cm 2 , while for waveguide #2 the implanted energies were from 1.15 to 1 MeV at an angle of 30°a nd a final dose of 5 ϫ 10 16 ions/ cm 2 . When a waveguide is formed by ion implantation, color centers are generated during the process, which would imply absorption losses in the waveguide.2 Therefore, an annealing step is necessary in order to reduce these losses. In the present work both Nd:YAG waveguides were introduced during half an hour in an open furnace operating at 400°C.To ascertain in which extent the spectroscopic properties of the neodymium ions are affected by the ion implantation process, a cw Ti:sapphire laser, with a tuning range between 750-850 nm, was used as excitation source and laun...

In this work the formation of optical channel waveguides in Nd:YAG crystals by either proton or carbon implantation is reported. The channel waveguides were obtained by a single implantation process through an electroformed mask of nickel-cobalt alloy. Experimental measurements of the optical properties of these waveguides are presented.

The performance of CW Nd:YAG waveguide lasers operating at 1.06 microm at room temperature is described. The waveguides were fabricated by proton implantation and the main differences in the process of fabrication were the angle of implantation and the total dose implanted. The characterization of the waveguide refractive index profile induced by proton implantation and the main laser characteristics i.e., slope efficiency and threshold are presented.