LASER PROPERTIES OF A NEW AVERAGE-POWER ND-DOPED PHOSPHATE-GLASS

The Nd-doped phosphate laser glass described herein can withstand 2.3 times greater thermal loading without fracture, compared to APG-1 (com mercially available Average-Power Glass from Schott Glass Technologies ). The enhanced thermal loading capability is established on the basis of the intrinsic thermomechanical properties (expansion, conduction, fracture toughness, and Young's modulus), and by direct thermally indu ced fracture experiments using Ar-ion laser heating of the samples. Th is Nd-doped phosphate glass (referred to as APG-t) is found to be char acterized by a 29% lower gain cross section and a 25% longer low-conce ntration emission lifetime. Other measurements pertaining to the conce ntration quenching, thermal lensing, and saturation of the extraction are also described in this article. It is noteworthy that APG-t offers increased bandwidth near the peak of the 1054 nm gain spectrum, sugge sting that this material may have special utility as a means of genera ting and amplifying ultrashort pulses of light.