Article

News | 01-12-2019

Newly developed laser enables diode-pumped laser emission in the green and yellow spectral range

Compact, cost-efficient, and easy-to-handle visible lasers are highly demanded in several applications e.g. in industry, medicine, and imaging applications. Despite strong research activities in this field, as of now there are still no laser diodes available which directly emit in the so-called "green gap" at wavelengths between 540 nm and 600 nm.

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Pink lines indicate the newly developed diode-pumped solid-state lasers, black lines indicate commercially available laser diodes

The research at the Center for Laser-Materials (ZLM) at the Leibniz-Institut for Crystal Growth (IKZ) now led to the development of an efficient diode-pumped solid-state laser with emission in the green and in the yellow spectral range. The presented laser based on trivalent terbium as the active ion is a simple and compact approach for the direct generation of visible laser light. Pumped by a laser diode emitting at 488 nm in the cyan-blue range, a terbium-doped lithium-yttrium-fluoride crystal emits up to 44 and 14 mW at wavelengths of 542 and 587 nm, respectively. This is the first time, a diode-pumped solid-state laser based on trivalent terbium was realized. It is highlighted that this laser is free of any frequency conversion steps and as such more simple than a green laser pointer. Power scaling will be facilitated by the future progress in cyan-blue diode lasers.

This work was accepted for publication in the prestigious journal Laser & Photonics Reviews [1] and is featured as a world news report on lasers & sources in Laser Focus World [2].

References
[1] E. Castellano-Hernández, S. Kalusniak, P. W. Metz, and C. Kränkel, "Diode-pumped laser operation of Tb3+-LiLuF4 in the green and yellow spectral range", Laser & Photonics Reviews (accepted for publication) 2019, DOI: 10.1002/lpor.201900229
[2] Laser Focus World, December 2019, p. 14 ff, available online:
https://digital.laserfocusworld.com/laserfocusworld/201912/MobilePagedReplica.action?pm=1&folio=14#pg16

More Information:
Christian Kränkel
Section Crystals for Photonics / CLM