Study of the electrical-conductivity kinetics of KTP crystals used in the modulators of solid-state lasers

Rusov, V.A., Zakharova N.A., Kaplun А.В., Meshalkin А.В., Gorchakov А.V.

Publication in Journal of Optical Technology

For Russian citation (Opticheskii Zhurnal):

Русов В.А., Захарова Н.А., Каплун А.Б., Мешалкин А.Б., Горчаков А.В. Исследование кинетики электропроводности кристаллов КТР, применяемых в модуляторах твердотельных лазеров // Оптический журнал. 2013. Т. 80. № 9. С. 11–16. Rusov V. A., Zakharova N. A., Kaplun A. B., Meshalkin A. B., and Gorshakov A. V. Study of the electrical-conductivity kinetics of KTP crystals used in the modulators of solid-state lasers // Opticheskii Zhurnal. 2013. V. 80. №8. P. 11–16.

For citation (Journal of Optical Technology):

V. A. Rusov, N. A. Zakharova, A. B. Kaplun, A. B. Meshalkin, and A. V. Gorshakov, "Study of the electrical-conductivity kinetics of KTP crystals used in the modulators of solid-state lasers," Journal of Optical Technology. 80(9), 532-536 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1364/JOT.80.000532

Abstract:

This paper presents the results of studies of the kinetics of the conduction current in the pulsed regime of high-resistance KTP crystals with electrical resistivity (1–5)×10¹⁰ Ω cm, grown from solutions in a phosphate melt by a modified Czochralski method. It is established that, when the electric field is switched on, there is slow growth of the conduction-current pulse, whose leading edge is about 5.2 ms wide. In the electrooptic modulators of Nd:YAG lasers controlled by a driver with pulsed bias, the bias-pulse width usually lies in the range 50–300 μs. The conduction current through high-resistance KTP crystals does not exceed 100 nA in such a regime, and, as shown by our experiments on lifetime, there are virtually no limits on the use of modulators based on KTP crystals associated with their electrochromic degradation.

Keywords:

crystals of cts, solid electrolytes, electrical conductivity of crystals of cts, electrochromic degradation of crystals, electrical aging of crystals, transverse electro-optical effect, electro-optical modulator, modulation of laser Q-factor

OCIS codes: 140.3540.

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