Synthesis, growth and optical characterization of doped lanthanum magnesium aluminate

摘要

Solid-state lasers are of great interest and importance in infrared sensing and imaging devices as well as in other applications. The objective of this research was to study the synthesis, crystal growth, and optical characterization of a material recently discovered for its potentially useful optical properties: lanthanum magnesium aluminate (LMA). In these experiments, samples of LMA were grown by the vertical gradient freeze (VGF) technique. This technique has most recently been used to grow high quality titanium doped sapphire crystals mainly due to the inherent stability of this system in providing a stationary heat zone during growth runs. The furnace used for this growth technique also has the advantage of requiring a reducing atmosphere which may be used, if desired, to maintain reduced valence states of the dopant ions. This thesis discusses tunable lasers, crystal growth techniques, and the results of the study on LMA.