Abstract

The tunable UV lasers are useful devices for a variety of applications ranging from photochemistry to environmental sensing, and implying any kind of selective interaction of radiation with matter. The most desirable from the point of view of simplicity, and reliability are the solid-state ones. The only solid-state sources providing tunability directly in UV and VUV are lasers based on the allowed d-f-transitions of rare-earth ions in wide band-gap dielectric crystals.^[1-3] Up to now there are only three known laser media of such type.^[1-3] It is due to the specific problems of photochemical stability of the hosts, excited-state absorption of the impurity ions, connected with the proximity of the excited states involved and the bottom of conduction band. So, the search for the new active media for UV is reasonable among the structure and chemical analogues of the known media. From this point of view the LiLuF₄ one must pay attention. This host has been studied earlier as an active medium for IR and visible lasers when activated by Pr³⁺, Nd³⁺, Er³⁺ and Ho³⁺ ions.^[4,5] In the present paper the results of spectroscopic and lasing studies of LiLuF₄ crystals with Ce³⁺-doping are presented for the first time.

© 1992 IQEC