Laser Demonstration of Diode-Pumped Nd³⁺-Doped Fluorapatite Anisotropic Ceramics

We report the first demonstration of a diode-pumped anisotropic ceramic laser that uses microdomain-controlled neodymium-doped hexagonal fluorapatite [Nd 3+ :Ca 10 (PO 4 ) 6 F 2 , Nd:FAP] polycrystalline ceramics as the gain medium, which were fabricated by the rare-earth-assisted magnetic grain-orientation control method, as a step toward achieving giant micro photonics. The laser delivers 1063.10 and 1063.22 nm output beams when pumped with a central wavelength of 807.5 nm and a 2 nm bandwidth diode laser operating in quasi-continuous-wave (QCW) mode. We obtained a maximum QCW peak power of 255 mW with an uncoated 2 at. % Nd:FAP material.