Crystal growth and optical properties of Er3+ in three melilite-type laser hosts: Ca2Al2SiO7 (CAS), Ca2Ca2SiO7 (CGS), and SrLaGa3O7 (SLG)

Er-doped lasers operating near 1.5 µm are useful for numerous applications (LIDAR, optical fiber communication, eye safe range finder). The development of high power laser diodes lasing around 0.98 pm allowed the pumping of the Er3+ ions through Yb3+, which strongly absorbs in that spectral range. Ca2Al2SiO7 (CAS), Ca2Ga2SiO7 (CGS) and SrLaGa3O7 (SLG) with melilite-type structure are good matrices for rare earth ions and a structural disorder around the RE3+ involves broad absorption and fluorescence bands.1 In this study, two series of crystals with good optical quality are prepared by the floating zone method at various RE3+ concentrations to perform spectroscopy and by the Czochralski process to obtain large laser rods.