Nonlinear optical responses of erbium-doped YAG ceramics

Abstract By performing the Z-scan measurements with ultrafast femtosecond laser centered at 800 nm wavelength, we can unambiguously distinguish the real and imaginary part of the third-order optical nonlinearity of the erbium-doped YAG ceramics. The reverse saturable absorption of the erbium-doped YAG ceramics has been observed experimentally, and the nonlinear refractive index of the ceramics is estimated to be about 10 −21 m 2 /W. The experimental results may provide design guidelines for the high power laser design and its applications.