Nd:YAG laser

Common card · No. 224393

Nd:YAG (neodymium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet; Nd:Y3Al5O12) is a crystal that is used as a lasing medium for solid-state lasers. The dopant, neodymium in the +3 oxidation state, Nd(III), typically replaces a small fraction (1%) of the yttrium ions in the host crystal structure of the yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG), since the two ions are of similar size. It is the neodymium ion which provides the lasing activity in the crystal, in the same fashion as the red chromium ion in ruby lasers. Laser operation of Nd:YAG was first demonstrated by Joseph E. Geusic et al. at Bell Laboratories in 1964. Geusic and LeGrand Van Uitert received the Optical Society of America's R. W. Wood Prize in 1993 "for the discovery of the Nd:YAG laser and the demonstration of its usefulness as a practical solid state laser source".

Read on Wikipedia · Image Kkmurray, CC BY 3.0