Rare-earth doped mixed sesquioxides for ultrafast lasers [Invited]

Sesquioxides are outstanding host materials for rare-earth doped laser gain media. Unfortunately, their very high melting points make it challenging for them to be fabricated in high quality. Recently, we demonstrated that some mixed sesquioxides exhibit significantly reduced melting temperatures compared to their constituents. This enables their growth by the established Czochralski method yielding rare-earth doped mixed sesquioxides of high optical quality. Due to their inhomogeneously broadened gain spectra caused by the intrinsic disorder, mixed sesquioxides are very promising for the generation and amplification of ultrashort pulses. To envisage the potential of this emerging class of gain materials, this paper reviews the spectroscopic as well as continuous wave and pulsed laser properties of crystalline and ceramic rare-earth doped mixed cubic sesquioxides of the form (Sc-x,Lu-y,Y-z)(2)O-3 with x + y + z = 1. (C) 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

Mixed sesquioxides are excellent host materials for rare-earth doped laser gain media, with reduced melting temperatures for easier fabrication and high optical quality. Due to their inhomogeneously broadened gain spectra caused by intrinsic disorder, mixed sesquioxides show great potential for the generation and amplification of ultrashort pulses.