Espectroscopia óptica do cristal de Safira dopado com íons de Titânio (Ti3+) para aplicação em cavidades ópticas

Abstract

Sapphires are commercially synthesized since 1902, but only in 1982 the crystal Ti:Sapphire began to be used as an active medium of optical cavities. Currently one of the leading ultrafast lasers with femtosecond pulses (10−15s) is the Titanium:Sapphire (Ti:Sapphire) laser, which has two emission settings: continuous and pulsed. In the pulsed regime one usually obtains a spectrum with bandwidth of some tens of nanometers. However, in some specific situations, this spectrum can be expanded to a 500 nm, known as supercontinuum. In both regimes the active medium is Sapphire crystal doped with Titanium ions Ti+3. This work presents the characterization of a Ti:Sapphire crystal with the following spectroscopic techniques: Absorption, Photoluminescence, Thermal Lens and Z-Scan. The aim of this analysis is to better understand its thermal and nonlinear behavior, thus expecting to obtain an interpretation of the laser emission spectrum generated within the optical cavity in the pulsed regime using this crystal as a means of gain. The spectroscopy made in the crystal allows an update of the literature data and additional information like thermal diffusivity and generation of nonlinear refractive index.