Investigation of Y2.1Er0.9(ScxGa1−x)5O12 Matrix Components on the Spectral Properties around 3.0 μm by Micro-Pulling-Down Method
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1. Authors should remove the phrase “the first time” from the abstract.
2. Authors should mention the manufacturer of the powder used in this manuscript.
3. Authors should avoid using “And” at the beginning of the sentence.
4. Authors have presented only the results obtained using different characterization techniques without any discussion. Authors should provide scientific explanantion to the results and establish correlation between them.
5. It is not clear how authors have obtained the lifetimes. Author should demonstrate the procedure to obtain lifetime in a separate figure.
6. Authors should assign the peaks in both XRD and Raman spectra, and discuss the nature of their transitions.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: Authors should remove the phrase “the first time” from the abstract.
Response 1: Thank you for the comments from the reviewer. We have removed the phrase “the first time” from the abstract. The specific change can be found in the abstract of the article.
Point 2: Authors should mention the manufacturer of the powder used in this manuscript.
Response 2: Thank you for the comments. As the reviewer’s comments, we have added the procedure that we prepare the powder used as follow. “The Polycrystalline materials Y2.1Er0.9(ScxGa1-x)5O12 were made by Er2O3, Y2O3, Sc2O3 and Ga2O3 commercial powders that their purity is 99.99％. According to the different molar proportion of Sc3+:Ga3+ (1:9, 2:8, 3:7 and 4:6) in every compound, the relevant powders were accurately weighed with keeping the total weight of every group in 10 grams.Afterwards, these powders were adequately mixed for more than 48h.”
Point 3: Authors should avoid using “And” at the beginning of the sentence.
Response 3: Thank you for the comments from the reviewer. According to your comments, the relevant change has been made in the article. All “And” at the beginning of the sentence have been modified.
Point 4: Authors have presented only the results obtained using different characterization techniques without any discussion. Authors should provide scientific explanation to the results and establish correlation between them.
Response 4: Thank you for the comments. We have added the relevant discussion and explanation in the part of the “Results” of the article.
Point 5: It is not clear how authors have obtained the lifetimes. Author should demonstrate the procedure to obtain lifetime in a separate figure.
Response 5: Thank you for the comments. The relevant illustration and figure have been added in the article as follow . The relevant explanation has also been added in the article of the part 3.2.
Point 6: Authors should assign the peaks in both XRD and Raman spectra, and discuss the nature of their transitions.
Response 6: Thank you for the comments. We have added the relevant discussion in the part 3.3 of the article. We also assign the peaks in both XRD and Raman spectra of the article.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Report on “Investigation of Y2.1Er0.9(ScxGa1-x)5O12 matrix components on the spectral properties around 3.0 μm by micro-pulling-down method”.
In this paper authors presented experimental investigation of laser crystal that can emit at 3 um. The mid-infrared fiber laser is current hot topic in photonics. Thus, this paper can be interested for a people working in the field of mid-infrared lasers. In my opinion this paper can be accepted after minor revision.
In order to improve quality of the manuscript the authors should consider the following comments/suggestions:
Comment 1:
In Fig.4 the y axis is expressed in abs unit. I am not familiar with this unit, normally abortion is presented in cm-1 or dB/m.Please comment on that.
Comment 2:
In Figures 6,7,8 x axis label is expressed in ns unit. It should be more clear for a reader if it expressed for example ms or s.
Comment 3
The authors have stated: And when the concentration is lower than the 20％, the material is tend to cause the near-infrared emission. The sentence should be rephrased and not start from and
Comment 4:
More general question: Have the author done any laser experiment that can prove that mid-infrared laser action at 2.7 um can be achieved from fabricated crystals.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: In Fig.4 the y axis is expressed in abs unit. I am not familiar with this unit, normally abortion is presented in cm-1 or dB/m.Please comment on that.
Response 1: Thank you for the comments. The abs presents the absorbance.The cm-1 or dB/m is the unit of absorbance index. There is a formula that is ab=Aln10. The A presents the absorbance. The a presents the absorbance index. The b presents the thickness of the wafer. In our work , we focused on comparing the absorption peak of every samples to find the regulations. We didn’t have to calculate the absorbance index in our work. So we just used the absorbance of our absorption spectra in our work.
Point 2: In Figures 6,7,8 x axis label is expressed in ns unit. It should be more clear for a reader if it expressed for example ms or s.
Response 2: Thank you for the comments. As the reviewer suggested, we have changed the ns unit to the ms for a more clear expression. Because some change in the manuscript, the original figure 6, 7, 8 have changed for the figure 7, 8, 9. The specific change can be seen in the figures 7, 8, 9 in the article.
Point 3: The authors have stated: And when the concentration is lower than the 20％, the material is tend to cause the near-infrared emission. The sentence should be rephrased and not start from and.
Response 3: Thank you for the comments. As the reviewer suggested, the sentence has been rephrased as follow. “In the same materials, when the concentration of doped-Er3+ is lower than the 20％, the emission wavelength is tend to be the near-infrared comparing the high doped-Er3+ concentration.”
Point 4: More general question: Have the author done any laser experiment that can prove that mid-infrared laser action at 2.7 um can be achieved from fabricated crystals.
Response 4: Thank you for the comments. At present, our major work is to explore and look for the regulation that is how the different proportion of Sc3+/Ga3+ can effect the emission wavelength. So at the current stage, we focused on the growth of new materials and the analysis of the fluorescence characteristics. Our next work is to do more laser experiments to find out more characteristics of the crystal.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I appreciate authors' efforts.
