Growth and properties of Pr3+ doped LiNbO3 crystal with Mg2+ incorporation: A potential material for quasi-parametric chirped pulse amplification

Abstract Praseodymium ion-doped LiNbO3 (Pr:LN) with x mol% Pr3+ ions (x = 0.5, 1, and 2) and praseodymium ion- and magnesium ion-co-doped LiNbO3 (Pr:Mg:LN) with 0.5 mol% Pr3+ and 5 mol% Mg2+ were grown by the Czochralski method. The contents of Pr3+ and Mg2+ in the crystals were measured by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES). The Li/Nb values of the crystals were determined by Raman spectroscopy. X-ray diffraction(XRD) results showed that the structure of the doped crystals had no obvious change. The thermal properties of the crystals were investigated, and the results indicated that the thermal properties of LiNbO3 were more prominent than those of other crystals for quasi-parametric chirped pulse amplification (QPCPA). The optical properties of the crystals were studied systematically. The transmittance of the as-grown crystals at 1030 nm and 3000 nm reached over 68%, and there was a strong absorption peak at 1572 nm. Moreover, the laser damage threshold of the crystals was investigated, and the value of the Pr:Mg:LN crystal was as high as 47.3 MW/cm2 (@532 nm,10 ns). These characteristics of the as-grown crystals may provide promising applications in QPCPA.