Titanium-sapphire laser

Part of a Ti:sapphire oscillator. The Ti:sapphire crystal is the bright red light source on the left. The green light is from the pump diode

Titanium-sapphire lasers (also known as Ti:sapphire lasers, Ti:Al2O3 lasers or Ti:sapphs) are tunable lasers which emit red and near-infrared light in the range from 650 to 1100 nanometers. These lasers are mainly used in scientific research because of their tunability and their ability to generate ultrashort pulses thanks to its broad light emission spectrum. Lasers based on Ti:sapphire were first constructed and invented in June 1982 by Peter Moulton at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.[1]

Titanium-sapphire refers to the lasing medium, a crystal of sapphire (Al2O3) that is doped with Ti3+ ions. A Ti:sapphire laser is usually pumped with another laser with a wavelength of 514 to 532 nm, for which argon-ion lasers (514.5 nm) and frequency-doubled Nd:YAG, Nd:YLF, and Nd:YVO lasers (527–532 nm) are used. They are capable of laser operation from 670 nm to 1,100 nm wavelength.[2] Ti:sapphire lasers operate most efficiently at wavelengths near 800 nm.[3]

  1. ^ Moulton, P. F. (1986). "Spectroscopic and laser characteristics of Ti:Al2O3". Journal of the Optical Society of America B. 3 (1): 125–133. Bibcode:1986JOSAB...3..125M. doi:10.1364/JOSAB.3.000125.
  2. ^ Steele, T.R.; Gerstenberger, D. C.; Drobshoff, A.; Wallace, R. W. (15 March 1991). "Broadly tunable high-power operation of an all-solid-state titanium-doped sapphire laser system". Optics Letters. 16 (6): 399–401. Bibcode:1991OptL...16..399S. doi:10.1364/OL.16.000399. PMID 19773946.
  3. ^ Withnall, R. (2005-01-01). "SPECTROSCOPY | Raman Spectroscopy". In Guenther, Robert D. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Modern Optics. Oxford: Elsevier. pp. 119–134. doi:10.1016/b0-12-369395-0/00960-x. ISBN 978-0-12-369395-2. Retrieved 2021-10-02.