Title

Discrimination Between Electronic And Thermal Contributions To The Nonlinear Refractive Index Of Sralf5:Cr+3

Abstract

In ion-doped solids there is a nonlinear refractive index n2 that is due to the polarizability difference ∆α between excited and ground states, the so-called population-lens (PL) effect. In addition, the thermal-lens (TL) effect is particularly important in fluoride materials, owing to their low thermal conductivity. We performed time-resolved Z-scan and mode-mismatched TL measurements at λ = 488 nm in SrAlF5: Cr+3. In this crystal the PL effect is faster than that of the TL, owing to its relatively short metastable lifetime (93 μs), and therefore we could temporally discriminate between these two contributions to the nonlinear refractive index. For the PL effect we measured n2 = (6.6 + 1.7i) × 10–11 cm2/W–1 and calculated ∆α = 3.1 × 10–26 cm3 and ∆σ = 1.7 × 10–20 cm2. From the TL measurements we obtained the thermal diffusivity D = 6.5 × 10–3 cm2 s–1 and estimated the thermal conductivity K = 1.7 × 10–2 Wcm–1K–1 and ds/dT = –8.5 × 10–7 K–1. © 1999 Optical Society of America.

Publication Date

1-1-1999

Publication Title

Journal of the Optical Society of America B: Optical Physics

Volume

16

Issue

3

Number of Pages

395-400

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1364/JOSAB.16.000395

Socpus ID

0347244336 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/0347244336

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