Prospects for Wavelength Tunable Lasers Based on Vacancy Defects in Alkaline-Earth Oxides.

摘要

Research on color centers in the alkali halides has proven fruitful in that the recent development of tunable lasers was a direct outgrowth of the studies. It is expected that research on the alkaline-earth oxides will also hear bear fruit in this area. In this article we discuss the merits and problems of using defects for tunable lasers. Our discussions shall be confined to CaO and MgO crystals. Vacancies such as the F(sup +) center (an anion vacancy with one electron which is therefore positively charged with respect to the lattice) constitute a four-level system. Vacancies can provide higher gain than transition metal or rare-earth ions. 15 refs., 5 figs.