Design of ZnSe QPM for wide transparency sensing and laser applications

ZnSe has been a great choice for the rare-earth and transition metal doping to develop lasers. It is an excellent material for variety of optical applications due to wide transparency range, good fabricability and very low optical absorption similar to other selenides. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center has developed large crystals using physical vapor deposition (PVD) doped with transition metals for lasing. GaAs based quasi-phase matched structures have a lot of limitations including difficulty of frequency conversion from available high-power lasers. We are developing Si- and GaAs- based templates and using microfabrication process to deposit ZnSe using physical vapor transport (PVT) method. Experimental results of the fabrication of templates and growth of ZnSe on templates will be presented.