Large-size Er,Yb:YAG Single Crystal: Growth and Performance

Currently, although Er3+ and Yb3+ co-doped YAG crystals are widely used in high power solid state lasers, there are still many challenges in growing large size, low defect doped YAG crystals using the Czochralski (Cz) method. In this paper, large-sized Er3+ and Yb3+ co-doped YAG bulk crystal with a diameter of 80 mm and a length of 230 mm was obtained by the fast Cz growth method. Their structure, doping concentration, optical absorption, luminescence performances, and etching defects were evaluated.According to the Raman detecting results, there is no significant variation in the peak positions and full width at half maxima (FWHM) of the Raman peaks at different locations on the wafer, indicating that the crystal structure and strain at central and edge section of thel wafer are uniformity. The etching results show that the corrosion pits are evenly distributed over the entire corrosion surfacewithout dislocation corrosion pit, which means that the crystals are highly near perfect. Strong luminescence peaks of Yb3+ and Er3+ at different wavelengths and glow discharge mass spectrometry results demonstrate the successful doping of rare earth ions in Er,Yb:YAG single crystals. This work successfully used the Cz method to grow large-sized, low-defect Er,Yb:YAG single crystals, confirming that the fast growth method is effective for doping double rare-earth ions in YAG crystals.