Applications of Wide-Band-Gap Materials for Optoelectronic Functional Devices Fabricated by a Pair of Interfering Femtosecond Laser Pulses

• Published in: Japanese Journal of Applied Physics Vol. 44; no. 2R; p. 910
• Main Authors: Kurobori, Toshio, Yamakage, Tomoya, Hirose, Yukio, Kawamura, Ken-ichi, Hirano, Masahiro, Hosono, Hideo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01-02-2005
• ISSN: 0021-4922; 1347-4065
• DOI: 10.1143/JJAP.44.910

A pair of interfering near-IR femtosecond pulses from a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser with a regenerative amplifier have been applied to wide-band-gap materials such a lithium fluoride (LiF) to create laser-active F
2
and F
3
+
color centers and to encode nonerasable periodic gratings with fine fringe spacings of submicrometer size simultaneously. Using such a photon-written microstructure, a distributed-feedback LiF laser oscillation based on F
2
color centers has been realized at room temperature. A lasing output performance with a linewidth of less than 1 nm, slope efficiency of ∼10%, and beam divergence of ∼20 mrad was obtained at 710 nm.