Abstract

Titanium-doped sapphire (Ti³⁺: Al₂O₃) has been of strong interest since it was first observed to be capable of broadband, continuously tunable lasing¹. However, quality of early crystals was poor with high scattering or absorption losses depending on the growth technique employed. To assess the current state-of-the-art in Ti: sapphire crystal growth, a crystal grown using the Czochralski method (CZ) and another crystal grown using the heat exchanger method (HEM) were acquired and tested for their relative laser performance.

© 1986 Optical Society of America