Single-Nanosecond-Pulse Lasing in Heavily Doped Fe:ZnSe

• Published in: IEEE photonics journal Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. 1 - 7
• Main Authors: Antonov, Vladimir A., Bukin, Vladimir V., Dolmatov, Timophey V., Firsov, Konstantin N., Gavrishchuk, Evgeny M., Kononov, Igor G., Obraztsov, Petr A., Podlesnykh, Sergey V., Ponarina, Mariya V., Sirotkin, Anatoly A., Zhavoronkov, Nikolay V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01-02-2021; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Crystals; Fe:ZnSe laser; Ferrous ions; Frequency modulation; Holmium; Ions; Laser excitation; Laser modes; Lasers; Lasing; Mid-infrared radiation; nanosecond pulse; Nanosecond pulses; Optical filters; Pulse duration; Pump lasers; Room temperature; Single crystals; Zinc selenide
• ISSN: 1943-0655; 1943-0647
• DOI: 10.1109/JPHOT.2020.3046363

We investigated room-temperature pulsed lasing in heavily doped Fe:ZnSe single crystals. The active elements were pumped by a Q-switched Cr 3+ :Yb 3+ :Ho 3+ :YSGG laser operating at 2.87 μm. Our results show that the generation of short laser pulses has a deep high-frequency modulation associated with relaxation dynamics in Fe:ZnSe. The lasing regime obtained in this study provides a straightforward way to generate mid-IR single nanosecond pulses at moderate pump energies. Moreover, we found a relation between the lasing pulse duration and the concentration of Fe 2+ doping ions, and we experimentally demonstrated pulse shortening in heavily doped active crystals. Single-pulse lasing with an FWHM pulse duration of ~2.8 ns was achieved in ZnSe crystals doped with 2.3 · 10 19 cm -3 Fe 2+ ions. The demonstrated single-pulse lasing regime is applicable for seeding high-power mid-IR laser systems.