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Vanadate Lasers

Definition: lasers based on rare-earth-doped yttrium, gadolinium or lutetium vanadate crystals, usually Nd:YVO₄

German: Vanadat-Laser

Categories: optical materials, laser devices and laser physics

Cite the article using its DOI: https://doi.org/10.61835/1nd

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The term vanadate laser is usually used for lasers based on neodymium-doped vanadate crystals. In particular, these include yttrium vanadate (Nd:YVO₄), gadolinium vanadate (Nd:GdVO₄), and lutetium vanadate (Nd:LuVO₄). These vanadates are also called orthovanadates. Such materials have been known for a long time [1], but became popular only many years later because for a long period it was difficult to grow them with high optical quality in sufficiently large sizes. Apart from progress in crystal growth, the advent of diode pumping increased the interest in vanadates also because much smaller crystals could be used, while lamp-pumped lasers usually require rather long laser rods.

There are also vanadate crystals doped with other rare earth ions, e.g. with ytterbium (Yb³⁺), erbium (Er³⁺), thulium (Tm³⁺) or holmium (Ho³⁺) doping. Due to the similar size, yttrium, gadolinium or lutetium ions can be replaced with laser-active rare earth ions without strongly affecting the lattice structure. This is important e.g. for preserving high thermal conductivity of the doped materials.

Vanadate crystals are naturally birefringent, which eliminates thermally induced depolarization loss in high-power lasers. Also, the laser gain is strongly polarization dependent (→ polarization of light); the highest gain is usually achieved for polarization along the <$c$> axis. The pump absorption is also strongly polarization-dependent (except at special wavelengths), which can cause problems e.g. when using a fiber-coupled pump source with drifting polarization.

For Nd:YVO₄, the typical laser emission wavelength is 1064 nm, i.e., essentially the same as for Nd:YAG. Other important emission wavelengths are 914 and 1342 nm; those differ substantially from those of Nd:YAG. The 1342-nm emission line is much stronger than the corresponding 1.32-μm line in Nd:YAG, thus allowing for much better performance in 1.3-μm operation.

Property	Value
chemical formula	Nd³⁺:YVO₄
crystal structure	tetragonal
mass density	4.22 g/cm³
Moh hardness	5–6
Young's modulus	133 GPa
tensile strength	53 MPa
melting point	1810 °C
thermal conductivity	≈ 5 W / (m K) (values around 9–12 are also found in the literature)
thermal expansion coefficient	11 × 10⁻⁶ K⁻¹ (<$c$> direction), 4.4 × 10⁻⁶ K⁻¹ (<$a$> direction)
transparency range	0.3–2.5 μm
birefringence	positive uniaxial
refractive index at 1064 nm	2.17 for <$c$> polarization (extraordinary), 1.96 ordinary index
temperature dependence of refractive index	3 × 10⁻⁶ K⁻¹ in <$c$> direction, 8.5 × 10⁻⁶ K⁻¹ in the <$a$> direction
Nd density for 1% at. doping	1.24 × 10²⁰ cm⁻³
fluorescence lifetime	90 μs
absorption cross-section at 808 nm	60 × 10⁻²⁰ cm² (<$c$> polarization)
emission cross-section at 1064 nm	114 × 10⁻²⁰ cm² (<$c$> polarization)
gain bandwidth	1 nm

Table 1: Some properties of Nd:YVO₄ = neodymium-doped yttrium vanadate.

Comparison of Nd:YVO₄ and Nd:YAG

Nd:YVO₄ lasers are usually diode-pumped, but can also be lamp-pumped. Compared with Nd:YAG (→ YAG lasers), Nd:YVO₄ exhibits a much higher pump absorption and gain (due to the very high absorption and laser cross-sections), a broader gain bandwidth (around 1 nm), a much broader wavelength range for pumping (often eliminating the need to stabilize the pump wavelength), a shorter upper-state lifetime (≈ 100 μs for not too high neodymium concentrations), a higher refractive index, a lower thermal conductivity, and birefringence. The consequences of these differences for various modes of laser operation are the following:

For continuous-wave operation, Nd:YVO₄ allows overall similar performance to Nd:YAG in cases with medium or high power. Whereas the thermal conductivity is worse, the temperature coefficient of the refractive index is smaller, so that thermal lensing is not stronger. Due to its high gain efficiency, Nd:YVO₄ is better than Nd:YAG for lasers with very low threshold pump power.
Nd:YVO₄ is extremely well suited for passively mode-locked lasers with very high pulse repetition rate; nearly 160 GHz have been demonstrated. This feature results mainly from the high laser cross-sections and the strong pump absorption.
For Q-switched lasers, Nd:YVO₄ does not allow for pulse energies as high as for Nd:YAG because its capability for energy storage is lower than that of Nd:YAG due to the lower upper-state lifetime and the high gain efficiency. On the other hand, Nd:YVO₄ is better suited for high pulse repetition rates, where it still allows the generation of fairly short Q-switched pulses.

Other Nd-doped Vanadate Crystals

Compared with Nd:YVO₄, Nd:GdVO₄ has a similar thermal conductivity, a slightly shorter emission wavelength (1063 nm), a somewhat larger gain bandwidth, lower emission cross-sections, and still higher pump absorption. Note, however, that the published data concerning thermal conductivity of vanadate crystals differ considerably, so there are some significant uncertainties.

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Bibliography

[1]	J. R. O'Connor, “Unusual crystal-field energy levels and efficient laser properties of YVO₄:Nd”, Appl. Phys. Lett. 9, 407 (1966); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1754631
[2]	A. I. Zagumennyi et al., “The Nd³⁺:GdVO₄ crystal: a new material for diode-pumped lasers”, Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 22, 1071 (1992); https://doi.org/10.1070/QE1992v022n12ABEH003672
[3]	J. L. Blows et al., “Heat generation in Nd:YVO₄ with and without laser action”, IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 10 (12), 1727 (1998); https://doi.org/10.1109/68.730483
[4]	N. Hodgson et al., “High power TEM₀₀ mode operation of diode-pumped solid-state lasers”, Proc. SPIE 3611, 119 (1999); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.349265
[5]	Y. Sato and T. Taira, “The studies of thermal conductivity in GdVO₄, YVO₄, and Y₃Al₅O₁₂ measured by quasi-onedimensional flash method”, Opt. Express 14 (22), 10528 (2006); https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.14.010528
[6]	N. Pavel et al., “In-band pumping of Nd-vanadate thin-disk lasers”, Appl. Phys. B 91 (3-4), 415 (2008); https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-008-3013-7
[7]	J. Liu et al., “Comparative study of high-power continuous-wave laser performance of Yb-doped vanadate crystals”, IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 45 (7), 807 (2009); https://doi.org/10.1109/JQE.2009.2014253
[8]	Y. Yan et al., “Near-diffraction-limited, 35.4 W laser-diode end-pumped Nd:YVO₄ slab laser operating at 1342 nm”, Opt. Lett. 34 (14), 2105 (2009); https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.34.002105
[9]	D. Sangla et al., “Highly efficient Nd:YVO₄ laser by direct in-band diode pumping at 914 nm”, Opt. Lett. 34 (14), 2159 (2009); https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.34.002159
[10]	G. Turri et al., “Temperature-dependent stimulated emission cross-section in Nd³⁺:YVO₄ crystals”, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 26 (11), 2084 (2009); https://doi.org/10.1364/JOSAB.26.002084
[11]	X. Délen et al., “Temperature dependence of the emission cross-section of Nd:YVO₄ around 1064 nm and consequences on laser operation”, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 28 (5), 972 (2011); https://doi.org/10.1364/JOSAB.28.000972
[12]	Yu Fu et al., “Photon–phonon collaboratively pumped laser”, Nature Commun. 14, 8110 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43959-9

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