Spectroscopy and laser operation of highly-doped 10 at.% Yb:(Lu, Sc)(2)O-3 ceramics

Highly-doped "mixed" transparent sesquioxide ceramics, 10 at.% Yb:(Lu2/3Sc1/3)(2)O-3, are fabricated by vacuum sintering at 1700 degrees C followed by hot isostatic pressing (HIPing) at 1680 degrees C and 200 MPa. The ceramics are of single-phase nature with a cubic (C-type, a = 10.191 A) structure and a mean grain size of 0.66 mu m. They feature high low-signal transmission of 79.0% at 1.20 mu m. The Yb3+ ions in "mixed" ceramics exhibit strong inhomogeneous broadening of the absorption and emission bands, with sSE of 0.43 x 10(-20) cm(2) at 1079.4 nm and an emission bandwidth of 25.7 nm. The crystal-field splitting for Yb3+ ions is revealed at 12 K. The Yb ceramic laser generated a maximum peak output power of 250 mW at similar to 1.04 and 1.08 mu m with a slope efficiency of 40.3%. The ceramics are promising for mode-locked lasers at similar to 1.08 mu m, including thin-disk geometry.