TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kazasidis, Orestis
A1  - Wittrock, Ulrich
T1  - Interferometric measurement of the temperature coefficient of the refractive index dn/dT and the coefficient of thermal expansion of Pr:YLF laser crystals
JF  - Opt. Expr.
N2  - We report interferometric measurements of the temperature coefficient of the refractive index (dn=dT) and the coefficient of thermal expansion (a) of a praseodymium-doped yttrium lithium fluoride (Pr:YLF) crystal and of a fused silica reference sample. Our phase-resolved interferometric method yields a large number of data points and thus allows a precise measurement and a good error estimation. Furthermore, both dn=dT and a are obtained simultaneously from a single measurement which reduces errors that can occur in separate measurements. Over the temperature range from 20 °C to 80 °C, the value of dn=dT of Pr:YLF decreases from -5.2 x 10-6 /K to -6.2 x 10-6 /K for the ordinary refractive index and from -7.6 x 10-6 /K to -8.6 x 10-6 /K for the extraordinary refractive index. The coefficient of thermal expansion for the a-axis of Pr:YLF increases from 16.4 x 10-6 /K to 17.8 x 10-6 /K over the same temperature range.
KW  - refractive index change
KW  - thermal expansion coefficient
KW  - laser crystal
KW  - praseodymium
KW  - yttrium lithium fluoride
Y1  - 2014
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-7720
VL  - 22
SP  - 30683
EP  - 30696
PB  - Optical Society of America
ER  -