Composite Nd(3+):YAG/Sapphire Waveguide Laser

We propose to investigate a fabrication process of crystalline waveguide lasers (CWGL) by optically bonding dissimilar crystals into composite structures. Since YAG is the most widely used laser host crystal, we chose Nd:YAG with undoped YAG ends as the guiding medium for the fabrication of buried channel CWGL, with sapphire as cladding. The lasing transition of Nd3+ in YAG at 946nm will be investigated, since it can be doubled to 488 nm. A wide range of useful CWGL operating from the UV to the IR could be prepared if we succeed in defining process parameters to overcome remaining stress birefringence parallel to the interfaces of the laser-active core. Attractive features will be negligible losses due to scatter, multimode or single mode lasing, lengths of CWGL ranging from microns to about 200 mm, low lasting thresholds, high power output, high efficiency, resulting in devices of improved performance over any exitsting CWGL.