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laser crystal
optical crystal
Nd:YVO4
Product Introduction:
The neodymium-doped yttrium vanadate crystal (Nd:YVO4) is a commercially available laser crystal with excellent performance, which is used for manufacturing laser diode pumpin..
Product description
What Zhongce Technology can provide:
The following coating systems can be provided by Zhongce Technology:
Product Introduction:
The neodymium-doped yttrium vanadate crystal (Nd:YVO4) is a commercially available laser crystal with excellent performance, which is used for manufacturing laser diode pumping, especially for medium and low-power lasers. Compared with Nd:YAG, Nd:YVO4 has a higher absorption coefficient for the pump light and a larger stimulated emission cross-section. When the Nd:YVO4 crystal pumped by a laser diode is used in combination with nonlinear crystals such as LBO, BBO, and KTP, a good frequency doubling conversion efficiency can be achieved, and solid-state lasers emitting in near-infrared, green, blue, and even ultraviolet bands can be fabricated. Currently, Nd:YVO4 lasers have been widely applied in many fields, including machinery, material processing, spectroscopy, wafer inspection, optical display, medical testing, laser printing, and data storage. Moreover, Nd:YVO4 diode-pumped solid-state lasers are rapidly replacing the market of traditional water-cooled ion lasers and lamp-pumped lasers, especially in terms of miniaturization and single longitudinal mode output.
Advantages of Nd:YVO4 Compared with Nd:YAG:
- The pumping bandwidth at around 808 nm is approximately 5 times that of Nd:YAG (Therefore, it has much less dependence on the pumping wavelength and tends to have a single-mode output).
- The stimulated emission cross-section at 1064 nm is 3 times that of Nd:YAG.
- It has a low laser threshold and high slope efficiency.
- It is a uniaxial birefringent crystal, and the output is linearly polarized.
What Zhongce Technology can provide:
- Doping concentration range: 0.1% - 3%
- Concentration control accuracy: ±0.05% (when at.%＜1%), ±0.1% (when at.%≥1%)
- High-quality Nd:YVO4 crystals of various sizes, with the maximum size up to ϕ20x40 mm3
- It can provide 10,000 pieces of Nd:YVO4 crystals with sizes ranging from 3x3x0.5 mm to 4x4x8 mm per month.
- Fast delivery
- Competitive prices
Figure 1. Absorption curve of 0.5% Nd:YVO4 (with a thickness of 4 mm)
| Crystal Structure | Tetragonal crystal system, space group D4h-I4/amd |
| Unit Cell Parameters | a = b = 7.1193 Å, c = 6.2892 Å |
| Density | 4.22 g/cm3 |
| Atomic Density | 1.26×1020 atoms/cm3 (Nd 1.0%) |
| Mohs Hardness | 4 - 5 Mohs (Approximately the same as glass) |
| Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (at 300K) |
αa=4.43×10-6 /K
αc=11.37×10-6 /K
|
| Thermal Conductivity (at 300K) |
//C: 5.23 W/m/K
⊥C: 5.10 W/m/K
|
| Laser Wavelength | 1064 nm, 1342 nm |
| Thermo-Optic Coefficient (at 300K) |
dno/dT = 8.5×10-6 /K
dne/dT = 2.9×10-6 /K
|
| Stimulated Emission Cross-Section | 25×10-19 cm2 @ 1064 nm |
| Fluorescence Lifetime | 90 μs (1% Nd doping) |
| Absorption Coefficient | 31.4 cm-1 @ 810 nm |
| Intrinsic Loss | 0.02 cm-1 @ 1064 nm |
| Gain Bandwidth | 0.96 nm @ 1064 nm |
| Polarized Laser Radiation | π polarization; Parallel to the optical axis (c-axis) |
| Optical-Optical Conversion Efficiency | ＞60% |
| Sellmeier Equation (where λ is in units of μm) |
no2 = 3.77834 + 0.069736 / (λ2- 0.04724) - 0.010813 λ2
ne2 = 4.59905 + 0.110534 / (λ2 - 0.04813) - 0.012676 λ2
|
Laser Characteristics of Nd:YVO4:
- Compared with Nd:YAG, the greatest advantage of Nd:YVO4 lies in its wider absorption bandwidth. It has an absorption efficiency 5 times higher than that of Nd:YAG and reaches the peak absorption wavelength at around 808 nm, which fully meets the standards of current high-power laser diodes. This enables us to use smaller crystals to manufacture more compact lasers. At the same time, it means that the laser diode can output a specific amount of energy with lower power, thus extending its service life.
- The absorption bandwidth of Nd:YVO4 can reach 2.4 to 6.3 times that of Nd:YAG. In addition to the higher pumping efficiency, it provides a larger selection range for the specifications of diodes, which will reduce the production cost of the laser. Nd:YVO4 has relatively large stimulated emission cross-sections at 1064 nm and 1342 nm. At 1064 nm, the stimulated emission cross-section of Nd:YVO4 in the a-axis direction is approximately 4 times that of Nd:YAG, and the stimulated emission cross-section at 1340 nm can reach 18 times that of Nd:YAG at 1.3 μm. Therefore, the continuous output efficiency of Nd:YVO4 at the 1342 nm wavelength is much higher than that of Nd:YAG, making it easier to maintain a strong single-line excitation for the two wavelengths of the Nd:YVO4 laser.
- Nd:YVO4 belongs to the uniaxial crystal system and only emits linearly polarized light. Therefore, it can avoid birefringence interference during frequency doubling conversion, while Nd:YAG is a highly symmetric cubic crystal without this characteristic. Although the fluorescence lifetime of Nd:YVO4 is about 2.7 times shorter than that of Nd:YAG, due to its higher pumping quantum efficiency, a quite high slope efficiency can still be obtained in the design of an ideal optical cavity.
The following table shows the comparison of the main laser characteristics between Nd:YVO4 and Nd:YAG crystals.
| Laser Crystal |
Doping Concentration
（at.%）
|
Stimulated Emission Cross-Section
σ（×10-19cm2）
|
Absorption Coefficient
α（cm-1）
|
Fluorescence Lifetime
τ（μs）
|
Absorption Length
Lα（mm）
|
Threshold Power Pth（mW） |
Pumping Quantum Efficiency
ηS（%）
|
|
Nd:YVO4
（a-cut）
|
1 | 25 | 31.2 | 90 | 0.32 | 30 | 52 |
| 2 | 25 | 72.4 | 50 | 0.14 | 78 | 48.6 | |
|
Nd:YVO4
（c-cut）
|
1.1 | 7 | 9.2 | 90 | — | 231 | 45.5 |
| Nd:YAG | 0.85 | 6 | 7.1 | 230 | 1.41 | 115 | 38.6 |
Specifications of Nd:YVO4 Crystal:
| Size Tolerance |
(W±0.1 mm) × (H±0.1 mm) × (L + 0.5/-0.1 mm) (L≥2.5 mm)
(W±0.1 mm) × (H±0.1 mm) × (L + 0.1/-0.1 mm) (L＜2.5 mm)
|
| Effective Aperture | The central 90% area |
| Surface Finish | 10/5, Refer to MIL-PRF-13830B Standard |
| Flatness |
≤λ/8 @ 633 nm (L≥2.5 mm)
≤λ/4 @ 633 nm (L＜2.5 mm)
|
| Transmitted Wavefront Distortion | ≤λ/4 @ 633 nm |
| Parallelism | 20" |
| Perpendicularity | ≤15' |
| Angle Tolerance | ≤0.5° |
| Chamfer | ≤0.2 mm×45° |
| Edge Chipping | ≤0.1 mm |
| Damage Threshold | ＞1 GW/cm2 @ 1064 nm, 10 ns, 10 Hz (Antireflection Coating) |
| Quality Assurance Period | One year (under normal use) |
- AR/AR-1064/808 nm for two polished surfaces, R＜0.2% @ 1064 nm, R＜0.5% @ 808 nm, or R＜0.1% @ 1064 nm, R＜3% @ 808 nm.
- S1: HR-1064/532 nm, HT-808 nm, R＞99.8% @ 1064/532 nm, T＞90% @ 808 nm. S2: AR-1064/532 nm, R＜0.2% @ 1064 nm, R＜0.5% @ 532 nm.
- S1: HR-1064 nm, HT-808 nm, R＞99.8% @ 1064 nm, T＞95% @ 808 nm. S2: AR-1064 nm, R＜0.1% @ 1064 nm.
- Antireflection coatings for S1 and S2, and protective gold/chromium coating for S3.
- AR/AR-1064 nm for two polished surfaces; S3: AR-808 nm.
- Customized coating system services can be provided.
