Effect of Dopants on Laser-Induced Damage Threshold of ZnGeP2

The effect of doping Mg, Se, and Ca by diffusion into ZnGeP2 on the optical damage threshold at a wavelength of 2.1 mu m has been studied. It has been shown that diffusion-doping with Mg and Se leads to an increase in the laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) of a single crystal (monocrystal), ZnGeP2; upon annealing at a temperature of 750 degrees C, the damage threshold of samples doped with Mg and Se increases by 31% and 21% from 2.2 +/- 0.1 J/cm(2) to 2.9 +/- 0.1 and 2.7 +/- 0.1 J/cm(2), respectively. When ZnGeP2 is doped with Ca, the opposite trend is observed. It has been suggested that the changes in the LIDT depending on the introduced impurity by diffusion can be explained by the creation of additional energy dissipation channels due to the processes of radiative and fast non-radiative relaxation through impurity energy levels, which further requires experimental confirmation.