Liquid phase epitaxial growth and characterization of Nd:YAG/YAG structures for thin film lasers

摘要

Liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) is a suitable technique to produce diode laser-pumped solid state lasers with a planar waveguide structure. The thin films of Nd~(3+), Ga~(3+) and Lu~(3+) doped YAG have been grown from a supercooled molten garnet - flux high temperature solution on undoped YAG substrates by the standard LPE dipping technique. The emission spectra and fluorescence lifetimes have been measured for Nd:YAG layers with different concentration of Nd~(3+) ions (1-6 at. %). Additionally the films were investigated vs. concentration of neodymium, gallium and lutetium using ESR, X-ray diffraction and microinterferometric techniques. According to above measurements it can be concluded that the obtained epitaxial structures are of good quality.