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arXiv:0909.3136 · Applied Physics Letters

Resonant cavity-enhanced absorption for optical refrigeration

Denis V. Seletskiy, M. P. Hasselbeck, M. Sheik-Bahae

Published May 3, 2010• 27 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A 20-fold increase over the single path optical absorption is demonstrated with a low loss medium placed in a resonant cavity. This is applied to laser cooling of ytterbium-doped fluorozirconate glass resulting in 90% absorption of the incident pump light. A coupled-cavity scheme to achieve active optical impedance matching is analyzed.
DOI
10.1063/1.3397989

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We show that Purcell effect can lead to a substantial enhancement in the maximum cooling power for solid-state laser cooling. We numerically demonstrate such enhancement in a patterned slot-waveguide structure using ytterbium-doped silica as the active material. The enhancement arises primarily from the increase of saturation power density and the escape efficiency, and can persist in spite of the presence of parasitic absorption in the structure surrounding the active material. Our results point to a new opportunity in photonic structure design for optical refrigeration.
We present a comparison between intracavity cooling and external cavity cooling for optical refrigeration. The results show that the intracavity scheme is preferred at low optical densities (< 0.008), while the external cavity scheme is preferred at higher optical densities (> 0.01). We can choose the proper scheme for different cases in experiments. Moreover, under the same conditions, taking Yb 3+ -doped ZBLAN (ZrF 4 -BaF 2 -LaF 3 -AlF 3 -NaF) film as an example, the cooling processes of the two scheme are obtained. The calculated results show that intracavity cooling will achieve a larger temperature drop for a thin film sample. Finally, the diode laser may become a candidate for the intracavity model briefly discussed.