Emission characteristics of vapor transport equilibrated Er:LiNbO[sub 3] crystals.

At room temperature, polarized visible and near infrared emission characteristics of 488 nm pumped vapor transport equilibration (VTE) treated Er:LiNbO[sub 3] crystals were investigated in comparison with the corresponding as-grown ones. The observed characteristics of the VTE crystal, whether it precipitates or not, include the retained polarization dependence, slight shift (less than 5 Å) of peak position, narrowing of some individual emission peaks, the appearance of additional emission peak near 1536.5 nm and the about 10% lengthening of 1.5 µm lifetime. In addition, in the case of lower Er doping level, the spectral shape are well reserved for the VTE crystals and no obvious changes in both visible and IR emission intensity. On the other hand, for those highly doped crystals, the VTE treatment not only results in a definite change of relative intensity between some emission peaks in IR region, but also causes the drop of both visible and IR emission intensity. Combining with the related absorption characteristic allow to conclude that the drop of the emission intensity results from the scattering of the nanocrystalline grains inside these crystals formed by VTE treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]