Scientific Reports (Apr 2023)

Demonstration of laser cooling in a novel all oxide GAYY silica glass

  • Jyothis Thomas,
  • Thomas Meyneng,
  • Amirhossein Tehranchi,
  • Nicolas Gregoire,
  • Frederic Monet,
  • Denis Seletskiy,
  • Younès Messaddeq,
  • Raman Kashyap

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31912-1
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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Abstract We demonstrate laser induced cooling in ytterbium doped silica (SiO2) glass with alumina, yttria co-doping (GAYY-Aluminum: Yttrium: Ytterbium Glass) fabricated using the modified chemical vapour deposition (MCVD) technique. A maximum temperature reduction by − 0.9 K from room temperature (296 K) at atmospheric pressure was achieved using only 6.5 W of 1029 nm laser radiation. The developed fabrication process allows us to incorporate ytterbium at concentration of 4 × 1026 ions/m3 which is the highest value reported for laser cooling without clustering or lifetime shortening, as well as to reach a very low background absorptive loss of 10 dB/km. The numerical simulation of temperature change versus pump power well agrees with the observation and predicts, for the same conditions, a temperature reduction of 4 K from room temperature in a vacuum. This novel silica glass has a high potential for a vast number of applications in laser cooling such as radiation-balanced amplifiers and high-power lasers including fiber lasers.