RESUMO
Yb-doped fluoride crystals are of important another Yb-doped laser materials besides Yb-doped oxide, which are becoming one of interests for developing tunable lasers and ultrafast lasers. In this paper, the systematic and contrastive experiments of the optical spectral characteristics are presented for two types of home-made novel Yb-doped fluoride laser crystals, namely, Yb-doped CaF2-SrF2 mixed crystal and co-doped Yb, Y:CaF2 single crystal. The fluorescent features of Yb-doped CaF2-SrF2 mixed crystal and co-doped Yb, Y:CaF2 single crystal are apparently different by the fluorescence experiment. The physical mechanism of these fluorescence spectra were analyzed and proposed. The influence of doping concentrations of active Yb(3+) ions or co-doping Y ions on the absorption of Yb-doped CaF2-SrF2 mixed crystal and co-doped Yb, Y:CaF2 single crystal was experimentally investigated, and the optimal values of doping concentrations of active Yb(3+) ions or co-doping Y ions in the two types of fluoride laser crystals were obtained. Continuous-wave laser operation for the two novel fluoride laser crystals has been achieved in three-mirror-folded resonator using a laser diode as the pump source. Therein, the laser operation for the co-doped Yb, Y:CaF2 crystal is demonstrated for the first time. For the two types of fluoride laser crystals (four samples), the input-output power relational curves, the optical slope efficiencies and the laser spectra were demonstrated by the laser experiments. By comparisons between the two types of fluoride laser crystals in the absorbability, fluorescence and laser spectra, laser threshold and slope efficiency of the continuous-wave laser operation, the results show that the best one of the four samples in spectral and laser characteristics is co-doped 3at%Yb, 6at% Y:CaF2 single crystal, which has an expected potential in the application. The research results provide available references for improving further laser performance of Yb-doped fluoride crystals.