Abstract

The demonstration of Co:MgF₂ laser operation with the crystal at or near room-temperature [1] opened up the possible use of the laser in applications outside of the laboratory. The upper- state lifetime of the Co:MgF₂ laser transition reduces rapidly with increasing temperature because of thermally activated multiphonon relaxation. All the initial studies of the Co:MgF₂ system were done with the crystal cooled to cryogenic temperatures, in order to maintain life-times in the msec range [2,3]. At room temperature the lifetime is less than 40 usee, but efficient pulsed operation can be obtained if the pump source is a normal-mode 1320-nm Nd:YAG laser. In the first reported room-temperature experiments the Co:MgF₂-laser output energies were limited to 70 mJ by the available energy from the pump laser [1]. In the work discussed here we have assembled a high-energy pump source and have been able to increase the Co:MgF₂ laser output energy by more than an order-of-magnitude.

© 1992 Optical Society of America