Sb2Te3thin film for the passive Q-switching of a Tm:GdVO4laser

Identifier:  imarina:3934048

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/imarina3934048

Authors:  Loiko, Pavel; Boguslawski, Jakub; Maria Serres, Josep; Kifle, Esrom; Kowalczyk, Maciej; Mateos, Xavier; Sotor, Jaroslaw; Zybala, Rafal; Mars, Krzysztof; Mikula, Andrzej; Kaszyca, Kamil; Aguilo, Magdalena; Diaz, Francesc; Griebner, Uwe; Petrov, Valentin

Abstract:
© 2018 Optical Society of America. We report on the first application of an antimony telluride (Sb2Te3) thin film as a saturable absorber (SA) in a microchip laser. The 3-15 nm-thick Sb2Te3films were deposited on glass substrates by pulsed magnetron sputtering and they were studied by SEM, X-ray diffraction, Raman and optical spectroscopy. The saturable absorption of the Sb2Te3film was confirmed at 1.56 μm for ns-long pulses revealing low saturation intensity of 0.17 MW/cm2. The microchip laser was based on a Tm:GdVO4crystal diode-pumped at ~802 nm. In the continuous-wave regime, this laser generated 3.54 W at 1905-1921 nm with a slope efficiency of 37%. The Q-switched laser generated a maximum average output power of 0.70 W at 1913 nm. The highest pulse energy of 3.5 μJ and the shortest pulse duration of 223 ns were obtained at the 200 kHz repetition rate.