914 nm LD end-pumped 31.8 W high beam quality E-O Q-switched Nd:YVO4 laser without intracavity polarizer

We report a 914 nm LD end-pumped high power, high beam quality (M _x ² = 1.378, M _y ² = 1.287) electro-optical Q-switched Nd:YVO₄ laser with TEM₀₀-mode output. At the absorbed pump power of 67.6 W, a 31.8 W 1064 nm Q-switched laser with 43 ns pulse duration was achieved at 100 kHz repetition rate, corresponding to an optical-to-optical efficiency of 47%. The maximum pulse energy and shortest pulse width were 1.67 mJ and 18.5 ns at 10 kHz, and the calculated peak power was 90.3 kW. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest Q-switched output power ever obtained for a Nd:YVO₄ oscillator pumped at 914 nm.     

Q-switched Ho:YAlO<Subscript>3</Subscript> laser pumped by Tm:YLF laser at room temperature

A Q-switched high efficient Ho:YAlO₃ (Ho:YAP) laser pumped by a diode-pumped Tm:YLF laser at room-temperature is realized. The maximum output energy reaches 1.58 mJ under the repetition frequency of 5 kHz, when the incident pump power is 15.6 W. The pulse width is 22 ns. The wavelength is 2118 nm when the transmission of output coupler is 30%. The beam quality factor is M ² ∼ 1.39 measured by the traveling knife-edge method.     

26 mJ Total Output from a Gain-Switched Single-Mode Er3+-Doped Zblan Fiber Laser Operating at 2.8 $$ \mu $$m

We demonstrate a laser-diode-pumped gain-switched Er³⁺-doped ZrF₄-BaF₂-LaF₃-AlF₃-NaF (ZBLAN) fiber laser operating in a single transverse mode at 2.8 \( \mu \)m. The laser pulses produced offer high-pulse energies, with repetition rates ranging from 50 Hz to 10 kHz and a slope efficiency of approximately 14.3% with respect to the launched pump power. The average power at the 50 Hz repetition rate is 1.33 W, giving a maximum total output pulse energy of 26.6 mJ per pump pulse. The fiber laser operates in a single mode, with beam quality factor M² less than 1.2.     

激光二极管列阵侧面泵浦Nd：YLF激光器

报道准连续６０Ｗ激光二极管列阵侧面泵浦Ｎｄ：ＹＬＦ固体激光器的研究结果，当器件的动转重复频率为３０Ｈｚ时，得到４．４ｍＪ的１．０４７μｍ激光输出，光－光转换效率达到１８．３％，斜率效率达２４．４％。声光和电光调Ｑ，得到能量为２．２ｍＪ，脉宽分别为５０ｎｓ和３０ｎｓ的脉冲输出。     

High peak power Nd:YAG laser pumped by 600-W diode laser stack

The Q-switched laser with triangle slab made of Nd:YAG crystal side pumped by 600-W quasi-cw diode laser stack has been designed. The multimode (M²≈2.6) output energy of about 42 mJ was demonstrated in free running mode for110-mJ pump energy. In Q-switch experiments, the KDDP Pockels cell was placed between the slab and rear mirror in plane-plane cavity with output coupler of 84% transmission. The energy of 8 mJ in 2.1-ns pulse duration was obtained for near TEM₀₀ output beam. For passive Q-switching by means of Cr:YAG crystal of 12.6% unsaturated transmission, the energy of 5.1 mJ in 2.5-ns pulse duration was obtained for output beam close to TEM₀₀ mode.     

High energy flash-lamp pumped Nd:YAG laser emitting at 1073.8 nm

A flash-lamp pumped Nd:YAG laser emitting 1073.8 nm is demonstrated. A thin film polarizer is inserted into the cavity for generating linearly polarized lasers. With incident pump energy of 69.6 J and pulse repetition rate of 1 Hz, output pulse energy of up to 487 mJ is obtained from a 1.0 at % Nd-doped Nd:YAG rod with a size of Ø6 mm × 110 mm. And the polarization ratio is more than 1000:1 at the output pulse energy of 487 mJ. The beam quality factors in the two orthogonal directions are 24.4 ± 0.2 and 24.6 ± 0.2, respectively.     

Optical parametric oscillators for high pulse energy and high average power operation based on large aperture periodically poled KTP and RTA

We report on optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) based on large aperture periodically poled KTiOPO₄ (PPKTP) and RbTiOAsO₄ (PPRTA) pumped with high pulse energy and high average power Q-switched solid-state lasers. The OPOs were pumped with 1064-nm pulses of a diode-pumped Nd:YVO₄ laser at 20 kHz repetition rate. The emitted signal wavelengths were 1.72 μm and 1.58 μm and the idler wavelengths were 2.79 μm and 3.26 μm, respectively. Pumping the PPKTP OPO with 7.2 W and the PPRTA OPO with 8 W average power, 2 W and 1.3 W total OPO output powers were generated. Two-dimensional measurements of the total OPO output power, the signal wavelength and the signal bandwidth in dependence on the crystal location indicated a good uniformity of the quasiphasematching structure over the entire 3-mm-thick crystals. This allowed pumping with larger pump beams and therefore with pulse energies of tens of millijoules. Pumping with different flash-lamp-pumped lasers, good OPO performance and high output pulse energies could be achieved for all pump lasers. Maximum input pulse energies of 56 mJ gave output pulse energies of as much as 18 mJ. The temperature tuning behaviors of both OPOs were measured, showing excellent agreement with calculated temperature tuning curves. New equations for temperature dispersion in RTA are presented. These results show that large-aperture PPKTP and PPRTA crystals are well suited for tunable nanosecond OPO operation with multi-watt average pump power and several tens of millijoules pump pulse energies. Received: 7 September 2001 / Published online: 7 November 2001     

Enhanced beam quality for medical applications at 6.45 μm by using a RISTRA ZGP OPO

A high-average power ZGP OPO with a nonplanar ring RISTRA cavity, pumped by a Ho³⁺:LLF MOPA is presented. A maximum pulse energy at 100 Hz repetition rate of 5.67 mJ at 6.45 ??m with a M² = 1.8 was achieved. The slope efficiency was 16% and the emission spectrum is shown. With a repetition rate of 200 Hz an average output power of 0.95 W at 6.45 ??m was reached.     

High-repetition-rate Nd:YVO4 slab laser with a 1-D top-hat output beam

A high-repetition-rate electro-optic Q-switched Nd:YVO₄ slab laser is demonstrated in this paper. The Nd:YVO₄ slab inside the compact resonator is end-pumped by a 2-bar laser diode stack. The output beam with one dimension (1-D) top-hat intensity distribution at both near field and far field is generated. Continuous wave (CW) output of 13 5 W is obtained under the total pump power of 50 W. At the repetition rate of 40 kHz, the energy per pulse is 0.32 mJ with its pulse width of 26.3 ns. At 20 kHz, we have achieved the maximum pulse energy of 0.56 mJ and 56 kW peak power with 10 ns pulse width.     

A comparison of resonantly pumped Ho:YLF and Ho:LLF lasers in CW and Q-switched operation under identical pump conditions

Singly 0.5 at.% Ho doped crystals of YLiF₄ (YLF) and LuLiF₄ (LLF) are studied under identical pump conditions in continuous-wave (CW) and Q-switched operation. Longitudinal end-pumped CW laser performance shows Ho:LLF to have a slightly lower threshold and a slightly higher slope efficiency with respect to absorbed pump power than Ho:YLF. Both lasers were operated on π-polarization. At a cavity output coupling of 20% and a crystal length of 30 mm, the Ho:LLF (Ho:YLF) laser yielded 18.8 W (18 W) of CW output at a wavelength of 2067.8 nm (2064.0 nm) for 41.4 W (42.2 W) of absorbed pump power with a slope efficiency of 67.1% (65.6%) and an optical-to-optical efficiency of 45.4% (42.6%) with respect to absorbed pump power. With the same output coupling and a crystal length of 40 mm, the Ho:LLF (Ho:YLF) laser yielded 20.5 W (18.1 W) of CW output at a wavelength of 2067.7 nm (2064.3 nm) for 51.5 W (50.0 W) of absorbed pump power with a slope efficiency of 58.4% (55.4%) and an optical-to-optical efficiency of 39.8 (36.1%) with respect to absorbed pump power. The influence of the temperature of the cooling mount on CW laser performance was studied and showed very similar results for both laser materials. At full pump power, a slope of −155 mW/°C (−149 mW/°C) was observed for the Ho:LLF (Ho:YLF) laser with a crystal length of 30 mm. In Q-switched operation, the Ho:LLF (Ho:YLF) laser produced 37 mJ (38.5 mJ) at a repetition rate of 100 Hz with a pulse duration of 38 ns (35 ns) at a wavelength of 2053.1 nm (2050.2 nm) with a slope efficiency of 30.3% (31%) and an optical-to-optical efficiency of 14.2% (13.9%) with respect to absorbed pump power. The beam quality was nearly diffraction limited (M ²<1.1).     

Efficient High-Power Ho:YAG Laser Pumped by Dual-End-Diode-Pumped Tm:YLF Laser

We report a Ho:YAG (Ho-doped yttrium aluminum garnet) laser pumped by a dual-end-diode-pumped Tm:YLF (Tm-doped yttrium lithium fluoride) laser to obtain an efficient experimental device with high output-power characteristics. We study the influence of the specific values of the output coupling mirror transmittance, the resonant cavity length, and the radius of curvature of the output coupling mirror on the Ho:YAG laser output characteristics. Under optimum experimental conditions, under which the output coupling mirror transmittance was 30%, the resonant cavity length was 25 mm and the output coupling mirror radius of curvature was 300 mm, and the maximum pumping power of the dual-end-diode-pumped Tm:YLF laser was 15.2 W. We obtain an efficient high-power 2.122-μm laser output of 7.98 W from the Ho:YAG laser. The optical-to-optical conversion efficiency is 52.5%, and the beam quality factor figures are M _x ² ?=?2.89 and M _y ² ?=?2.97.     

Leptonic and hadronic corrections to mass and propagator ofW andZ bosons

Using the propagator formalism we establish more precisely the effects of fermion loops on the boson mass ratioM _W ² /M _Z ² cos² θ and on the energy dependence of the form factors associated to time-like or space-likeW, Z and γ exchanges. We calculate the corrections due to higher doublets of quarks including vector meson formation and to higher doublets of leptons for example a large number of neutrino types.     

885 nm LD end-pumped 22.7 W high beam quality electro-optical Q-switched Nd:YAG laser

We report an 885 nm laser diode (LD) end-pumped high beam quality (M _x ² = 1.322, M _y ² = 1.235) electro-optical Q-switched Nd:YAG laser with TEM₀₀-mode output for the first time. At the absorbed pump power of 59.5 W, a 22.7 W 1064 nm laser was achieved at 10 kHz repetition rate with optical-to-optical efficiency of 38.1%. The maximum pulse energy and shortest pulse width were 5.1 mJ and 14.5 ns at 2 kHz repetition rate, and the calculated peak power was 352 kW.     

MeanM-subshell fluorescence yields atZ=88, 90, 92, and 94

M x-ray —L x-ray coincidence measurements with high resolution, cooled Si(Li) x-ray detectors were made on transitions following the alpha decays of²²⁸Th,²³²U,²³⁸Pu, and²⁴⁴Cm, in order to determine the meanM-subshell fluorescence yields. The values obtained are:v ₄ ^M =0.032±0.002, andv ₅ ^M =0.024±0.002 atZ=88;v ₁ ^M =0.038±0.003,v ₄ ^M =0.042±0.002, andv ₅ ^M =0.038±0.002 atZ=90;v ₁ ^M =0.047±0.002,v ₄ ^M =0.048±0.002, andv ₅ ^M =0.044±0.002 atZ=92;v ₁ ^M =0.066±0.002,v ₄ ^M =0.062±0.002, andv ₅ ^M =0.063±0.002 atZ=94. The quantityΩ ₁ ^M +f ₁₂ ^MΩ ₂ ^M was measured as (56±10)×10^?4, (62±12)×10^?4, (99±18) ×10^?4, and (93±15)×10^?4 forZ=88, 90, 92, and 94, respectively, which agree well with the calculations of McGuire. The radiativeL ₁-L ₃ transition intensity was measured for the four atomic numbers and found to be consistently less than the calculations of Scofield by about 45 percent.     

Bismuth triborate (BiB3O6) optical parametric oscillators

We report the phase matching of parametric frequency conversion in the nonlinear material BiB₃O₆ (BiBO) and on an investigation of optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) of this new crystal. Based on the calculation of collinear type I and type II phase matching within the refractive-index planes, the most favorable directions for phase matching are identified for OPOs pumped by the fundamental or the harmonics of 1064-nm Nd-doped lasers. Based on these results, pulsed 532-nm-pumped ns OPOs are realized. The pump source is either a Q-switched high repetition rate (10 kHz) Nd:YVO₄ laser (with a pulse energy of 24 J) or a low repetition rate (10 Hz), high pulse energy (120 mJ) Nd:YAG laser system. The BiBO OPO pumped by the Nd:YVO₄ laser showed a very low threshold of 0.047 J/cm². At an average pump power of 2.4 W the total OPO output power was 630 mW. By changing the phase-matching angle within the yz plane from 0 to 11.6° the signal wavelength was tuned from 735 nm to 970 nm, while the spectral width changed from 0.2 nm to 1.4 nm. By pumping the OPO with the Nd:YAG laser, the OPO had a threshold of 0.12 J/cm², a steep slope (59%) and a high total efficiency (of up to 48%). Due to divergence broadening the spectral width changes from 8.5 nm at 800 nm to 70 nm near degeneracy. The properties of BiBO determined from the experimental results are compared with those of well-known nonlinear materials such as BBO, LBO and KTP. PACS 42.65.-k; 42.65.Yj; 42.70.-a; 42.70.Mp     

Experimental Study of a Diode-Pumped Nd:YAG Slab Laser Amplifier

We demonstrate a laser-diode-pumped Nd:YAG slab amplifier with dimensions of 7×35×138.2 mm. The fluorescence is homogeneously distributed in the Nd:YAG amplifier, and a stored energy of 3.2 J can be achieved at 1,500 W pump power. For a repetition frequency of 200 Hz, 25 μJ injection polarized seed light, and 1,500 W pump power, the small signal gain reaches 12.66. At the same repetition frequency, 0.4 mJ with 27 ns bandwidth of injected seed-light energy and a 6×26 mm aperture, the output energy reaches 1.071 J. The extraction efficiency is 33.46% after four-pass amplification. An energy amplification from millijoules to joules is realized for the injected laser beam.     

Preparation and characterization of transparent Nd:YAG ceramics

Transparent Nd:YAG ceramics were produced by solid.state reaction of high.purity (4N) nanometric oxides powders, i.e., Al₂O₃, Y₂O₃ and Nd₂O₃. After sintering, mean grain sizes of 2% Nd:YAG samples were about 20 μm and their transparency were a bit worse than that of 0.9% Nd:YAG single crystal. Two types of active elements: rods and slabs were fabricated and characterized in several diode pumping schemes. In end pumping configuration as a pump source 20.W fiber coupled laser diode operating in low duty cycle regime (1 ms pump duration/20 Hz) was deployed. In the best case, 3.7 W of output power for 18 W of absorbed pump power, M² < 1.4 were demonstrated for uncoated ceramics Nd:YAG rod of ϕ 4×3mm size in preliminary experiments. For the ceramics of two times lower Nd dopant level above 30% slope efficiency was achieved. In case of Nd:YAG ceramic slab side pumped by 600.W laser diode stack above 12 W was demonstrated with slope efficiency of 3.5%.     

124 W diode-side-pumped Nd:YAG laser in dynamic fundamental mode

A high power dynamic fundamental mode Nd:YAG laser is experimentally demonstrated with a stagger-pumped laser module and a V-shaped resonator. The rod is pumped symmetrically by staggered bar modules. And dynamic fundamental mode is achieved under different pump levels. The maximal continuous wave (CW) output of 124 W (M²=1.4) is achieved with a dual rod. Average output of 112 W, pulse width of 120 ns, pulse energy of 11.2 mJ and peak power of 93 kW are obtained in Q-switched operation of 10 kHz.     

High-power diode-bar end-pumped Nd:YLF laser at 1.053 microm

We describe efficient cw operation of a Nd:YLF laser end pumped by two beam-shaped 20-W diode bars on the 1.053-microm transition. Fundamental transverse-mode operation with output power of 11.1 W for ~29.5 W of incident pump power was demonstrated. In Q-switched operation 8.4 W of average power at a pulse repetition frequency of 40 kHz and ~2.6-mJ pulse energy at a pulse repetition frequency of 1 kHz were achieved.     

Comparison of eye-safe KTA OPOs pumped by Nd:YVO4 and Nd:YLF lasers

An eye-safe KTA OPO pumped by a Nd:YLF laser is demonstrated and a comparison with that pumped by a Nd:YVO₄ laser is performed. Although the slope efficiency of the continuous-wave free-running Nd:YLF laser is lower than that of the Nd:YVO₄ laser, the performance of KTA OPOs pumped by the Q-switched Nd:YLF laser is better, especially at lower repetition rates. The slope efficiency of KTA OPO pumped by a Nd:YLF laser is 14.6% at 30 kHz and 11.04% at 10 kHz. The better energy storage ability of Nd:YLF makes it an excellent laser medium in IOPOs.