Evaluation Of Heavy Metal Fluoride Glasses For Use With The Erbium (YAG) Laser

Glenn Merberg; Mahmoud Shahriari; George Sigel Jr.

doi:10.1117/12.951382

2 June 1989 Evaluation Of Heavy Metal Fluoride Glasses For Use With The Erbium (YAG) Laser

Glenn Merberg, Mahmoud Shahriari, George Sigel Jr.

Proceedings Volume 1048, Infrared Fiber Optics; (1989) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.951382
Event: OE/LASE '89, 1989, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Abstract

A power delivery system capable of delivering high energy densities of infrared radiation at 2.94μm is required for the application of the Erbium YAG laser in the medical industry. Conventional silica fibers have high intrinsic absorption coefficients in this spectral region, making them unsuitable for this application. Alternatively, heavy metal fluoride glasses possess very low intrinsic loss at this wavelength, and also offer transparency in the visible part of the spectrum. These glasses are very hygroscopic, however, and the fundamental OH stretching absorption band occurs in the spectral region of interest. In this work heavy metal fluoride glass samples were prepared with a variety of processing conditions and compositions. The techniques of laser calorimetry and integrated scatter measurement were employed to obtain the absorptive and scattering components of the total optical attenuation at 2.94μm independently. Absorption was found to dominate over the scattering loss at this wavelength. Comparison of laser calorimetry and scattering data with IR spectrometer data indicates that the OH absorption peak is a transparency limiting factor in this spectral region for the best optical quality samples. Of the glass samples prepared for this work the minimum absorption coefficient obtained at 2.94μm was 0.0075cm-1, and the minimum scattering loss measured at this wavelength was 1.14 x 10-5cm-1. These minima were both measured on an aluminum fluoride based glass sample.

Citation Download Citation

Glenn Merberg, Mahmoud Shahriari, and George Sigel Jr. "Evaluation Of Heavy Metal Fluoride Glasses For Use With The Erbium (YAG) Laser", Proc. SPIE 1048, Infrared Fiber Optics, (2 June 1989); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.951382

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