Solid state ring laser gyroscope using rare-earth gain dopants in glassy hosts

A gain mirror structure, comprising:

• a substrate;
• a multilayer mirror stack over the substrate;
• and
• a rare-earth doped gain layer over the multilayer mirror stack, wherein the rare-earth doped gain layer comprises:
• a rare-earth dopant other than neodymium that is doped into a glassy host material, wherein the glassy host material comprises titania, tantalum oxide, alumina, zirconia, silicate glass, phosphate glass, tellurite glass, fluorosilicate glass, or non-oxide glass;
• or
• a neodymium dopant that is doped into a glassy host material other than silica;
• wherein the gain mirror is operative to produce bidirectional optical amplification of counter-propagating light beams in an optical closed loop pathway.

A solid state ring laser gyroscope, comprising:

• a laser block including a resonant ring cavity having an optical closed loop pathway with a substantially triangular shape;
• a first mirror structure, a second mirror structure, and a third mirror structure, each of the mirror structures respectively mounted at a corner of the laser block and having a respective multilayer dielectric mirror in optical communication with the optical closed loop pathway, each multilayer dielectric mirror positioned and angled to reflect light beams around the optical closed loop pathway;
• a pump laser assembly in optical communication with the optical closed loop pathway through one of mirror structures;
• wherein one or more of the mirror structures includes a gain mirror comprising a rare-earth doped gain layer over the multilayer dielectric mirror, the gain mirror operative to produce bidirectional optical amplification of counter-propagating light beams in the optical closed loop pathway;
• wherein the pump laser assembly is configured to inject a light beam into the rare-earth doped gain layer;
• wherein the rare-earth doped gain layer comprises:
• a rare-earth dopant other than neodymium that is doped into a glassy host material, wherein the glassy host material comprises titania, tantalum oxide, alumina, zirconia, silicate glass, phosphate glass, tellurite glass, fluorosilicate glass, or non-oxide glass;
• or
• a neodymium dopant that is doped into a glassy host material other than silica.