Room temperature Fe~(2+):ZnSe laser pumped by non-chain pulsed HF laser

摘要

An experimental setup of mid-infrared Fe:ZnSe laser operating at room temperature has been established,which was end-pumped by a non-chain pulsed HF laser. The temperature has significant influence on the level lifetime ofFe:ZnSe laser. As the crystal temperature changes from 85 to 295 K, the level lifetime of Fe ions changes from 57 to 0.35μs, it is important for matching the pump pulse width and the level lifetime. Electronic excitation HF laser with shortpulsed width is a good pump source for Fe~(2+):ZnSe laser at room temperature. For the Fe~(2+):ZnSe crystal with size of20×20mm, when the pumping spot diameters is lower than 9.2mm，the phenomenon of transversal parasitic oscillationcould been suppressed effectively. At room temperature, the output energy of Fe~(2+):ZnSe reaches 294mJ, the slopeefficiency is about 36%, and the optical to optical efficiency respecting to the pump energy is 34%.