Low loss laser glass: Final report

The objective of this work was a process development on making a laser glass with loss coefficient of 10/sup -4/cm/sup -1/ at 1.05..mu... The key issues for making such a low loss glass will be to use pure raw materials, to reduce OH content and to prevent contamination from the melting environment. A sublimation method was tried to prepare pure P/sub 2/O/sub 5/ batch material. In an attempt to distinguish contributions to the overall loss, glasses were melted in furnaces which were controlled in moisture as well as contamination. Evaluation of glass samples at LLNL are expected to provide guidance on the importance of various process parameters. A new 0.5 liter furnace which almost completely prevents contamination by the furnace environment has been constructed to obtain useful information for making a low loss glass on a production scale.