High‐Power Solid‐State Lasers: a Laser Glass Perspective

Abstract

Advances in laser glass compositions and manufacturing have enabled a new class of high-energy/highpower (HEHP), petawatt (PW) and high-average-power (HAP) laser systems that are being used for fusion energy ignition demonstration, fundamental physics research and materials processing, respectively. The requirements for these three laser systems are different necessitating different glasses or groups of glasses. The manufacturing technology is now mature for melting, annealing, fabricating and finishing of laser glasses for all three applications. The laser glass properties of major importance for HEHP, PW and HAP applications are briefly reviewed and the compositions and properties of the most widely used commercial laser glasses summarized. Proposed advances in these three laser systems will require new glasses and new melting methods which are briefly discussed. The challenges presented by these laser systems will likely dominate the field of laser glass development over the next several decades.

Highly Doped Phosphate Glass Fibers for Compact Lasers and Amplifiers: A Review

“…In terms of thermo-mechanical properties, phosphate glasses have typically a low glass transition temperatures (400-700 • C), if compared to silica (1000-1200 • C), and also lower softening temperatures (500-800 • C instead of 1500-1600 • C) [10,[16][17][18]. Although these thermal features present some advantages in terms of glass processing for fabricating the fiber preform, the drawback is that phosphate fiber can suffer from thermal degradation under high-power operation.…”

Investigations on the photoluminescence spectra and its defect-related nature for the ultraviolet transmitting fluoride-containing phosphate-based glasses

“…The fluoride-containing phosphate-based glasses were prepared from high purity raw materials (≥ 99.9%, Sigma Aldrich Inc.) with a weight composition (wt %) of Li 2 O (0.5-2), K 2 O (3-5), MgO (3)(4)(5), BaO (7-10), Al 2 O 3 (8-11), P 2 O 5 (59-64), YF 3 (0-1) and LaF 3 (0-2). The iraurite crucible containing the mixture was placed in a furnace under a reducing atmosphere with continuous flowing of 95% N 2 + 5% H 2 .…”

“…With the increasing demands of high-performance UV transmitting materials to be applied for lens system in UV microlithography equipments, excimer laser systems and other special UV optics, from several decades ago till nowadays, the investigations [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] on the optical performance, detailed structure-property relations of various fluoride-phosphate and other phosphate-based glasses have never stopped in the pursuit of developing new types of fluoride-containing phosphate-based glasses. The effects of intrinsic defects, extrinsic impurity ions, the irradiations of UV-lamp, excimer lasers, X-ray and Gamma-ray, etc., have been widely studied in order to explore the related defect formation mechanism and the applicability of these phosphate-based glass materials.…”

Directional solidification, thermo-mechanical and optical properties of (Mg_xCa_1-x)_3Al_2Si_3O_12 glasses doped with Nd^3+ ions

“…In particular, the search for developing new solid-state lasers based on rare-earth (RE)-doped glass matrices is nowadays the subject of intense research [1,2]. The investigation of new laser wavelengths or new RE-doped glass matrices thus becomes a prior requirement in order to satisfy the demand of further outcomings in the development of this kind of solid-state lasers.…”