Single Longitudinal Mode and Widely Tunable Er:Y₂O₃ Ceramic Laser at ∼ 2.7 μm

We report on single-longitudinal-mode and tunable operation of an Er:Y2O3 ceramic laser at ∼2.7 μm using intracavity Fabry-Perot etalons combined with a birefringent filter. The laser is pumped with a high brightness, narrow linewidth diode source at ∼980 nm and generated over 240 mW of linearly polarized output power at 2717 nm for an absorbed pump power of 5.1 W. The wavelength tuning range demonstrated was spanned from 2708.6 nm–2741.2 nm, with output powers of >220 mW in the whole tuning range.