Abstract

Recently, there has been an increasing interest in 3 μm lasers for medical and remote sensing applications. While erbium-doped Y₃Al₅O₁₂ (Er:YAG) had long been identified as a useful Er-laser that operates near 2.9 μm [1], there nevertheless exists a paucity of data in the key laser parameters characterizing the 3 μm transitions for different erbium-doped crystals [2,3]. As a consequence, we have studied the spectroscopic properties of a number of Er-doped and Ho-doped crystals, concentrating on the properties of the ⁴I_11/2=⁴I_13/2 emission in Er and the emission in Ho. These materials can presumably be pumped with laser diodes operating in the near infrared region.

© 1994 Optical Society of America