The Recent Development of Borate SF-Conversion Laser Crystal.

As a laser host, Borates possess favorable chemical and physical characteristics as well as higher damnification threshold. Especially, Borates usually have higher nonlinear optical efficiency resulted from its B-O structure. When doped with active ions, Borates can serve as a self-frequency conversion multifunction laser medium. For example, rare-earth ions and Cr³⁺-doped RX₃(B0₃)₄, especially GdAl₃(B0₃)₄ and TmAl₃(B0₃)₄, are typical self-frequency conversion multifunction laser crystals. After wide surveys of known research on the growth, crystal structure, and properties including thermal, optical, and spectral characteristics and laser property, this chapter reviews the recent advances in the development of these crystals. Self-frequency conversion laser technology including the self-frequency doubling, self-difference-frequency mixing and self-sum-frequency mixing methods were dealt with. As a result, the laser outputs with high efficiency at various wavelengths ranged from UV to IR have been achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]