Study of the properties and prospects of Ce:TAG and TGG magnetooptical ceramics for optical isolators for lasers with high average power

The prospective magnetooptical TGG, TAG and Ce:TAG ceramics for large- aperture Faraday isolators for lasers with average power more than 100W are compared. TGG ceramics is 1.5 times inferior to TGG crystals, whereas TAG ceramics is comparable with TGG crystals in maximum radiation power at the same isolation ratio. Optical power of their thermal lenses is also identical. Improvement of ceramics growth technologies and using doping for increasing Verdet constant is expected to additionally reduce thermal distortions in ceramics. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America