Crystal host engineering for transition metal lasers

Abstract

Much progress has been made in the power and energy scaling of mid-infrared lasers based on transition metal ions, such as Cr 2þ , Co 2þ , and Fe 2þ , in zinc and cadmium chalcogenides. Still, the exploration of the physics of these devices is incomplete. In this work, we analyze absorption spectra collected from Fe 2þ ions in several binary, ternary, and quaternary host crystals at temperatures from a few degrees Kelvin to room temperature. We use the zero-phonon lines of the low-temperature spectra to calculate the value of the crystal field energy of Fe 2þ ions in these hosts. We plot these crystal field energies with respect to the anion-cation distance of the host crystal and show that their crystal field strengths deviate somewhat from the trend predicted by crystal field theory. We use a model which we previously developed to describe the upper state lifetime of Fe 2þ ions to predict the steady-state radiative efficiency of Fe:II-VI materials with respect to temperature. The impact of relative crystalline disorder on the output characteristics of lasers based on Cr:ZnS, Cr:ZnSe, Fe:ZnSe, and Fe:CdMnTe is explored. The effect of decreased long-range order of the host crystal is observed in the broadening of the absorption spectra of Fe 2þ -doped ternary and quaternary alloys, the broadening of the spectral linewidth of continuous-wave Fe:II-VI lasers, and a reduction in the portion of the Cr:ZnSe emission spectrum accessible for modelocked lasing. This survey provides a richer picture of the tradespaces that can be leveraged when producing laser devices based on transition metal chalcogenides. © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.