Abstract

Due to the strong water absorption, 2.8μm-Er³⁺-lasers have interesting applications in the medical field. So far diode pumped cw Er³⁺-lasers at 2.8 μm have been reported in the power range below 100 mW in YLF [1] and about 500 mW for different garnets [2, 3], In this paper we report for the first time on 970 nm diode pumping of Er³⁺-doped fluoride hosts YLF (YLiF₄), KYF (KYF₄), and GLF (GdLiF₄). For comparison we also measured Er:GGG, which is one of the best performing cw 3 μm Er³⁺-lasers based on garnets. With Er:YLF, we achieved the highest cw output power of 1.1 W.

© 1995 Optical Society of America