Where to Buy Laser Crystals

• Are you sure that you are using the best suited laser crystal material for your application? If not, you may want to consult an expert.
• Also, before ordering crystals, one should be sure that one is using a proper laser design.
• Check the required dimensions.
• Check the doping concentration. Particularly for quasi-three level gain media, this is quite important. Caution: manufacturers can not always guarantee a high accuracy of the doping concentration.
• Will the crystal quality be sufficiently high? Possible aspects of relevance: homogeneous refractive index, no clustering of the dopant, impurities, parasitic absorption. (Some materials such as Cr⁴⁺:YAG are more critical than e.g. Nd:³⁺:YAG.)
• Is the surface quality high enough? For example scratch/dig 10–5 and λ/20 for demanding applications?
• For non-isotropic materials (e.g., Nd³⁺:YVO₄): what is the proper crystal orientation? How can it be recognized if it is not obvious from the geometry?
• Do you need anti-reflection coatings on the end faces?
• For side-pumped lasers: are the sides properly processed (e.g. polished)?

In case that you need additional advice, consultancy from RP Photonics may be the solution.