Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2014) 129: 37
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2014-14037-y

Regular Article

Increasing the laser damage threshold of the Nd:YAG crystal by ArF laser irradiation

¹ Laser and Optics Research Institute, Tehran, Iran
² Department of energy engineering and physics, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
³ Department of Physics, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran
⁴ Department of Physics, the University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran

^* e-mail: panahi.spb@gmail.com

Received: 15 October 2013
Accepted: 6 February 2014
Published online: 27 February 2014

Abstract

A Nd:YAG crystal sample was irradiated by 200 pulses of ArF excimer laser at 35mJ/cm^2 laser fluence and 1Hz repetition rate. The optical absorption of the Nd:YAG crystal was decreased in the whole spectral range of the ultraviolet visible near-infrared region after ArF laser irradiation and some oxygen vacancies of the Nd:YAG crystal were removed according to its additional absorption spectrum. A laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) measurement of the ArF laser treated crystal was performed by linearly polarized 30ns, 1064nm single longitudinal mode, TEM₀₀ laser pulses. The LIDT of the ArF-laser-irradiated crystal was found to be 302±35 J/cm^2, about three times higher than the LIDT of the unirradiated crystal. Thus, the laser-treated Nd:YAG crystal is preferred to apply as the laser amplifier medium, due to the possibility of further laser amplification caused by the higher damage threshold of the amplifier medium.