| Abstract: | Birefringence (B(f)) and its temperature derivative (dB(f)/dT) determine the temperature characteristics of nonlinear optical laser devices. The birefringence and its dispersion for a CdGeAs(2) nonlinear crystal are analyzed critically by use of a recently introduced, physically meaningful, dispersion equation at different operating temperatures from 14 to 450 K, which fits reasonably well with the experimental data. This equation is based on the average electronic absorption gap and the lattice absorption gap at the short- and long-wavelength transparency limits, respectively. |
