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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

what is the difference between yvo4 and nd:yvo4?

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LaserJoe

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Hi,

I'm new to this forum and would like some help. A little while back I bought 4 YVO4 crystals, not the nd:YVO4. Being new to the whole laser scene I kind of just bought it on a whim. Now I find out there might be a difference between the two crystals. I wanted to try my hand at making a green laser, but now I'm not sure if I got the right thing. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
 





goninanbl00d

goninanbl00d

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Flaminpyro said:
Some one else speak up but I think the ND: ones are doped xtals...
Click to expand...

Yes, you'd be right on that one.

The Nd:YVO4 crystals, are, as their name suggests, doped with neodymium ions. It is these ions which are responsible for the lasing action that takes place in the Nd:YVO4 crystal.

Sorry to say but your standard YVO4 crystals are useless; they won't lase at all when pumped as there is no metal ion which can lase. Consequently, even if you do pump it, you won't get anything more than a bit of fluorescence from some rare earth contaminants.

I'd recommend a bit of background reading on the basics of solid state lasers (Wikipedia is a good place to start), or the DPSS Primer (which can be found in my signature).
 
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LaserJoe

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Thank you for the replies. It was really help and informative.

Darn, now I don't know what to do with these crystals.
 
Bluefan

Bluefan

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Do you have any link where you got them? Maybe the seller has no idea about this name difference. A lot of people know that if you talk about a YAG laser, you mean a Nd:YAG laser, even though things like Er:YAG also exist. Maybe this one is the same. You can check the doping by measuring the absorbtion at 808nm.
 
Trevor

Trevor

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If you got them from someone who deals in lasers though, they're probably doped. In the industry, green sometimes gets called a "KTP" laser or "doubled YAG" or "doubled YVO4."

-Trevor
 
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suiraM

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Those are AR coated for Telecom wavelengths, and I would assume it's meant for 1550nm.

They are cut at 45 degrees, and they are meant to be used in polarizing prisms.

You may be able to make a decent PBS with them, or if you use the right entry angle, you can probably get them to do a passable job of working as dispersing prisms, but you would have to align them properly to get the greatest dispersion.

As far as I can tell, they are not doped, but they could possibly be lightly doped with Cerium or Erbium, though I can see no reason why there would be an AR-AR coating at 1550nm with those, since the wavelength for Erbium is almost 3µm, while Cerium has no lasing action (it is a scintillator material).
 
Bluefan

Bluefan

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Erbium also lases around 1550nm, that's why erbium doped fiber amplifiers are so popular. I've seen these crystals on ebay, the 1550nm coating revealed it's definately not Nd:YVO4. It may be Er:YVO4, that would be nice. The angle may be the crystal axis orientation, YVO4 is anisotropic.
 
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suiraM

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Ah. Right. Could be, then.

Normally, I would expect to see the axis stated instead of the cut angle, but conventions probably vary a lot.

If he wants to try pumping it, that would be a different wavelength, though (980nm like ytterbium, I think?), and then the beam is invisible and outside the range of most normal silicon diodes, so perhaps not an ideal place to start?
 
Bluefan

Bluefan

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Erbium doped fiber amplifiers are pumped at 980nm or 1480nm. Measuring the absorbtion at 980nm would determine if it's indeed doped. Germanium or InGaAs photodiodes can measure 1550nm just fine, but the 980nm absorbtion can already be measured with ordinary silicon photodiodes.
 
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LaserJoe

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Thank you everyone for the helpful info. I have one more question. I wanna sell them off and was wondering would the crystals be worth anything?
 
Bluefan

Bluefan

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It's always worth something for those interested to experiment with it, but with the chance of it being undoped it won't sell for much. Selling after checking the doping would be more succesfull.
 
Benm

Benm

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LaserJoe said:
Thank you everyone for the helpful info. I have one more question. I wanna sell them off and was wondering would the crystals be worth anything?
Click to expand...

I think the best way is to just put them on ebay and see.

I'm sure they are used in telecoms and perhaps other applications, people don't produce these crystals without a reason. You might as well just go for the highest bidder since these will not be of any use if you plan on building lasers.
 
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