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Seeded free growth method with physical transport was used for preparation of large-size II-VI single crystals uniformly doped by transition metals directly during the growth. The grown crystals possess small intrinsic losses. Based on these crystals new results on development of mid-IR lasers were achieved. With the CdSe:Cr crystal pumped at the room temperature (RT) by a continuous wave (CW) 1.908-mm thulium fiber laser, output laser power at 2.6 mm was increased up to 1.7 W. CW lasing from the ZnSe:Fe crystal was achieved using the 1 Introduction The market need of effective solidstate broadly tunable mid-infrared lasers for 2-5 mm spectral range is well known. This range stays difficult for quantum cascade lasers in spite of the last great results. The most popular laser now is an optical parametric oscillator. However it works only in pulse periodic mode because it utilizes nonlinear effect. The II-VI compounds doped by transition metals are certainly interesting as active materials for mid-infrared lasers [1,2]. The advantages of these lasers include broad tuning of lasing wavelength, room temperature (RT) operation, high efficiency, and capability to produce the high quality laser beam of 1-10 W output power.Most of transition-metal doped II-VI compound crystals were prepared either by Bridgman method or a solid-state diffusion method. The latter includes growth of a pure crystal preferably from vapor phase and doping of it by thermal diffusion of transition metal through the crystal surface. The crystals prepared in this way are characterized by great intrinsic losses due to the high concentration of background defects. To overtop these intrinsic losses they need to use highly doped crystals. But the higher doping concentration,

Graphene is a promising building block material for developing novel photonic and optoelectronic devices. Here, we report a comprehensive experimental study of chemical-vapor deposited (CVD) monolayer graphene’s optical properties on three different substrates for ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared spectral ranges (from 240 to 1000 nm). Importantly, our ellipsometric measurements are free from the assumptions of additional nanometer-thick layers of water or other media. This issue is critical for practical applications since otherwise, these additional layers must be included in the design models of various graphene photonic, plasmonic, and optoelectronic devices. We observe a slight difference (not exceeding 5%) in the optical constants of graphene on different substrates. Further, the optical constants reported here are very close to those of graphite, which hints on their applicability to multilayer graphene structures. This work provides reliable data on monolayer graphene’s optical properties, which should be useful for modeling and designing photonic devices with graphene.

A modified vapour phase contact‐free method to grow homogeneous single crystals of II‐VI compounds doped by transition metals is presented. Single crystals of ZnSe:Cr, ZnSe:Fe, ZnSe:Co, ZnSe:Ni, CdSe:Cr, ZnTe:Cr, ZnS:Fe and ZnS:Mn with doping level up to 1019 cm–3 have been grown. Efficient lasing at about 2.5 and 4 µm with ZnSe:Cr and ZnSe:Fe crystals respectively has been achieved. Dependence of Fe2+:ZnSe laser characteristics on temperature is presented in more detail. A possibility of using Cr2+:ZnSe laser in intracavity laser spectroscopy is demonstrated. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Efflcient room-temperature lasing is obtained in a Fe ^: ZnSe crystal pumped by 2.9364-цт giant pulses from an Er: YAG laser. The slope efficiency of a Fe ^ : ZnSe laser with respect to the absorbed pump energy is 13 %. The laser with a dispersion resonator can be continuously tuned from 3.95 to 5.05 цт. The luminescence lifetime of the T2 level of the Fe ^ ion in a ZnSe matrix at room temperature is measured to be 355 ± 15 ns.

The lasing characteristics of a Fe : ZnSe single crystal grown from the vapour phase by the free-growth technique using the chemical transport in hydrogen are studied. A Fe ^ : ZnSe laser cooled to liquid nitrogen temperature and pumped by 2.9364-цт radiation from an Er : YAG laser produces the 130-mJ output energy with a slope efflciency of 40 % in terms of the absorbed energy, which corresponds to a quantum efflciency of 55 %. The lasing spectrum in a dispersive resonator can be continuously tuned between 3.77 and 4.40 цт.technique have low internal losses [3, 4]. In our previous work [5], the first laser on a ZnSe : Fe crystal grown from a vapour phase was built and preliminary studies of its characteristics were performed. As a result, a slope laser efficiency of 18 % was obtained at an output energy of 25 mJ. However, the resonator used in Ref.[5] had rather high parasitic losses caused by the low optical quality of the ZnSe : Fe crystal and the Fresnel reflection from the windows of the cryostat in which the crystal was placed.The aim of this work was to study the lasing characte ristics of a ZnSe : Fe crystal placed in a laser resonator with minimum parasitic losses.

Graphene is a promising platform for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS)-active substrates, primarily due to the possibility of quenching photoluminescence and fluorescence. Here we study ultrathin gold films near the percolation threshold fabricated by electron-beam deposition on monolayer CVD graphene. The advantages of such hybrid graphene/gold substrates for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy are discussed in comparison with conventional substrates without the graphene layer. The percolation threshold is determined by independent measurements of the sheet resistance and effective dielectric constant by spectroscopic ellipsometry. The surface morphology of the ultrathin gold films is analyzed by the use of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), and the thicknesses of the films in addition to the quartz-crystal mass-thickness sensor are also measured by AFM. We experimentally demonstrate that the maximum SERS signal is observed near and slightly below the percolation threshold. In this case, the region of maximum enhancement of the SERS signal can be determined using the figure of merit (FOM), which is the ratio of the real and imaginary parts of the effective dielectric permittivity of the films. SERS measurements on hybrid graphene/gold substrates with the dye Crystal Violet show an enhancement factor of ~105 and also demonstrate the ability of graphene to quench photoluminescence by an average of ~60%.

Two-dimensional layers of transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have been widely studied owing to their exciting potential for applications in advanced electronic and optoelectronic devices. Typically, monolayers of TMDs are produced either by mechanical exfoliation or chemical vapor deposition (CVD). While the former produces high-quality flakes with a size limited to a few micrometers, the latter gives large-area layers but with a nonuniform surface resulting from multiple defects and randomly oriented domains. The use of epitaxy growth can produce continuous, crystalline and uniform films with fewer defects. Here, we present a comprehensive study of the optical and structural properties of a single layer of MoS2 synthesized by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on a sapphire substrate. For optical characterization, we performed spectroscopic ellipsometry over a broad spectral range (from 250 to 1700 nm) under variable incident angles. The structural quality was assessed by optical microscopy, atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy through which we were able to confirm that our sample contains a single-atomic layer of MoS2 with a low number of defects. Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopies revealed that MBE-synthesized MoS2 layers exhibit a two-times higher quantum yield of photoluminescence along with lower photobleaching compared to CVD-grown MoS2, thus making it an attractive candidate for photonic applications.