Polarizabilities and emission cross-sections of lanthanide laser crystals

Abstract The dependence between stimulated-emission cross-sections and polarizability volumes has been studied for laser transitions of Nd 3+ , Ho 3+ , Er 3+ , and Tm 3+ ions doped in dielectric crystals: complex oxides, simple and complex fluorides. The overall polarizability of each crystal containing Ln 3+ ions has been calculated by inclusion of the dopant polarizability in respective concentration. The applied method has revealed distinctly different positions of Nd 3+ ions in the mentioned dependence in a series of crystals, e.g. Y 3 Al 5 O 12 , YAlO 3 , LiYF 4 , compared to the other Ln 3+ ions doped in the same lattices.