Fabrication and Spectroscopy of High-Quality Tm3+-Doped Germanate Glass for 2 $\mu\mathrm{m}$ Laser Emission

Abstract

Laser devices emitting in the 2 $\mu$ m wavelength region are of interest for numerous applications going from light detection and ranging (LIDAR) to biomedicine. Most common 2 μm laser emission relies upon the exploitation of radiative transitions from $\text{Ho}^{3+}$ or $\text{Tm}^{3+}$ ions either in bulk or thin disk crystals, or in glass fibres as host materials. In the medium to high average power regime (> 10 W), glass bulk lasers cannot be considered due to their poor thermal conductivity. Yet, such laser configuration could prove of interest for short pulse laser generation if one remains in a low to medium (up to 10 W) power operation.