Laser Glasses

Bulk solid-state lasers (s)solid-statelaser (SSL) are a preferred class of lasers for high peak power and high average power generation due to their technological simplicity and economical power scaling. At the heart of a bulk SSL is a crystalline or amorphous material doped with transition metal ions or rare-earth elements. The focus of this chapter is a special subset of gain materials used for bulk solid-state laser emission, namely multicomponent glasses. A broad discussion on why glass is ideally suited for many laser applications along with methods used for assessing the many optical, thermal, mechanical and laser properties is presented. A detailed survey of spectroscopic methods used for the first-order approximation of laser performance from Er- and Nd-doped glasses is given. A few critical considerations for high-quality laser glass and components manufacturing is given in the final sections.