In recent years, Yb3+-doped crystals have attracted a great deal of attention with the rapid development of diode pumped solid-state laser (DPSSL). Yb:YAP has demonstrated many attractive characteristics, such as longer lifetimes, higher polarized cross-sections, lower thermal load, very short fluorescence decays and high laser energy capacity. It is a very promising laser crystal in laser-diode-pumped solid-state configurations and neutrino detection. Because of the simple electronic structure of Yb3+ion, which consists of only two levels, such unfavorable processes like excited state absorption, up-conversion or cross-relaxation are absent in Yb3+ lasers.
Yb:YAP Scintillator CrystalA Promising Laser Crystal for Diode-Pumped Solid-State Lasers
Yb3+-doped crystals are an attractive gain medium for diode-pumped solid-state lasers. Perovskite-like yttrium aluminate, YAlO3 (YAP) crystals have good optical, thermodynamic and mechanical properties, and have become a research hotspot in laser diode pumped solid-state laser gain media. Yb:YAP produces a linearly polarized laser and is a promising laser crystal for diode-pumped solid-state lasers. The optical absorption loss of the host can be reduced resulting from the broad energy gap of the Y2O3 material system, so that the Yb:YAP crystal may be a potential laser material for realizing 2.8-3.1m lasers. At present, the detection of neutrinos is a hot spot in physics, where YAP crystals with high Yb doping concentration are very promising. Moreover, Compared with YAG, single crystals of YAP could be grown faster at a lower temperature, with smaller cores and more favorable distribution coefficients for rare-earth dopants.
