Reply to comments on 'Ti: sapphire crystal used in ultrafast lasers and amplifiers'

摘要

This letter is intended as a reply to the comments of C.P. Khattak and F. Schmid directed to our original paper [1] which described the growth of large size, high quality Ti:sapphire crystals by temperature gradient technology (TGT) used in high peak power laser and amplifier systems. The important issue for growing large size, high quality Ti:sapphire crystal is to control the titanium concentration along the growth direction. The large size, high quality Tirsapphire crystals can be grown by Heat exchange method (HEM) and temperature gradient technology (TGT). The growth orientation of Ti:sapphire crystal along <0001> is more difficult than growth along other orientations. The difficulty of growing <0001> oriented sapphire crystal is attributed to the weakened effect of the main glide system and the close packed direction along the <0001> orientation. The <0001> oriented sapphire crystal is the desirable orientation for minimizing birefringence and this orientation is used for many optical applications such as laser gain medium, windows, etc. Therefore, growth of <0001> oriented sapphire crystal would be more desirable to achieve better material utilization for high quality optical applications and reduce the cutting lose and cost from other oriented sapphire crystals.