Cryogenic Tm:YAP microchip laser

Abstract

The spectral characteristics of laser active media, and thus those of the laser output, are temperature dependent. Specifically, in almost every crystal host, cooling to low temperatures leads to better heat removal, a higher efficiency and output power, and a reduced lasing threshold. Tm-ion doped lasers have an emission wavelength around 2 μm and are important in medicine for soft tissue cutting and hemostasis, as well as in LIDAR or atmosphere sensing technology. This paper presents the performance-temperature dependency of a 4 at. % doped Tm:YAP microchip. During the experiment the Tm:YAP crystal was placed inside an evacuated liquid nitrogen cryostat on a cooling finger. As its temperature was varied from 80 K to 340 K, changes were observed in the absorption spectrum, ranging from 750 nm to 2000 nm and in the fluorescence spectrum from 1600 nm to 2050 nm. Fluorescence lifetime was seen to rise and fall with decreasing temperature. The laser was pumped by a 792 nm laser diode and at 80 K the maximum output peak power of the laser was 4.6 W with 23 % slope efficiency and 0.6 W threshold, compared to 2.4 W output peak power, 13 % slope efficiency and 3.3 W threshold when at 340 K. The laser emission wavelength changed from 1883 nm to 1993 nm for 80 K and 300 K, respectively.