Kilohertz Electro-Optic Q-Switched Nd：YAG Ceramic Laser

We investigate the lasing characteristics of a laser-diode-array side-pumped electro-optic Q-switched Nd： Y3Al5O12 ceramic laser operating at 1000 Hz pulse repetition rate. Using a YAG polycrystalline rod with Nd^3＋ concentration of 1 at. % as the gain medium, pumping with 808 nm laser-diode-arrays, the Q-switched laser output at 1064 nm wavelength with 23mJ pulse energy and less than 12ns FWHM pulse width are obtained at a pumping power of about 400 W, the slope efficiency is around 15%, the output beam divergence angle is about 1.2mrad.     

Green Output of 1.5 W from a Diode-Pumped Intracavity Frequency-Doubled Self-Q-Switched and Mode-Locked Cr,Nd：YAG Laser

We report a diode-pumped intracavity frequency-doubled self-Q-switched and mode-locked Cr,Nd：YAG/KTP green laser with a Z-type cavity, which produces 1.5 W of average power at 532nm with incident pump power 14.2 W. The individual mode-locked green pulse duration is about 560ps with 149 MHz repetition rate. Almost 100% modulation depth of the mode-locked green pulses is achieved at an incident pump power of 4.13 W. The maximum energy of Q-switched green pulse is 19.8μJ. The experimental results of pulse duration and pulse energy of Q-switched green pulse agree well with the theoretical calculations.     

Compact, Low Threshold Nd^3＋：YVO4 Self-Raman Laser at 1178 nm

A compact low-threshold Raman laser at 1178 nm is experimentally realized by using a diode-end-pumped actively Q-switched Nd^3＋ ：YVO4 self-Raman laser. The threshold is 370mW at a pulse repetition frequency of S kHz. The maximum Raman laser output is 182 m W with the pulse duration smaller than 20 ns at a pulse repetition frequency of 30kHz with 1.8 W incident power. The optical efficiency from the incident power to the Raman laser is 10% and the slope efficiency is 13.5%.     

Calculation of the Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Q-switched Yb^3＋：YAG Laser with an Unstable Cavity and a Super-Gaussian Mirror

A numerical simulation used to compute the spatio-temporal dynamics of pulse formation of diode-pumped Q- switched Yb： YA G laser is carried out. The model takes the laser amplification and gain saturation, the properties of the laser cavity, and the diffractive effects of the laser disc into account. The numerical calculation is performed for a confocal positive-branch unstable resonator with a super Gaussian coupling mirror. The simulation results show that the laser pulse starts from a Gaussian intensity distribution and becomes rapidly non-Gaussian. The corresponding beam quality M^2 factor is seen to vary approximately from 1.5 at the beginning of the formation of pulse to more than 10 in the tail of the pulse, with a value of 11.6 at the peak of the pulse.     

A 5.9-mJ 500-Hz Electro-Optic Q-Switched 1053 nm Nd：LiLuF4 Laser

An efficient and high power 1053 nm electro-optic Q-switched Nd：LiLuF4 laser, end-pumped by two fiber coupled laser diodes at wavelength 806 nm, is reported for the first time. With an incident pump power of 24.4 W, the maximum laser output power of 7.3 W is achieved in free-running mode, and the optical conversion efficiency is 29.8%. For the Q-switched operation, the shortest pulse width of 17ns is obtained at the pulse repetition rate of 500 Hz, corresponding to the pulse energy of 5.9mJ with the peak power of 0.35 MW.     

A 52-mJ Ho：YAG Master Oscillator and Power Amplifier with Kilohertz Pulse Repetition Frequency

We report on a high energy, high repetition rate Ho：YAG master oscillator and power amplifier （MOPA）, res- onantly dual-end-pumped by Tm：YLF lasers at room temperature. At the pulse repetition frequency of i kHz, we demonstrate a maximum energy of 30mJ per pulse with a 28.2ns pulse width in a Ho：YAG oscillator system resonantly double-end-pumped by Tm：YLF lasers. A maximum energy of 52mJ per pulse with a 30.5ns pulse width is achieved in the Ho： YA G amplifier, corresponding to a peak power of approximately 1.7 MW. The output wavelength is at 2090.6nm and 2096.9nm, and a beam quality factor of M2-2.1 is achieved.     

Experimental Study on Dual Wavelength and Dual Pulse Q-Switched Frequency Doubling on a Tunable Cr： LiSAF Laser

A flashlamp-pumped Cr：LiSAF laser system with a voltage controlled Q-switch structure in the cavity is designed. A dual-wavelength and dual-pulse tunable laser output is gained. The relation of laser output behavior with input energy is studied experimentally. The output is dual-pulsed with the energy of the 32m J/pulse producing the total output energy of 64mJ and the pulse width is about 27ns at 850nm. Then, we use one LBO crystal as the frequency doubling crystal to obtain a dual wavelength （448.1 nm and 449.15nm） and dual pulse laser. The output for one wavelength is about 10.3mJ and the line width is less than 0.02nm.     

Laser diode end-pumped Nd：YVO4 regenerative amplifier for picosecond pulses

A diode dual-end-pumped Nd:YVO4 regenerative amplifier is reported. The influence of the cavity stability on the performance of the regenerative amplifier is studied. The experimental results match well with the analysis at high pump power. The mode locking seed pulses with 15 ps pulse width and 10 nJ single pulse energy at 86 MHz are amplified up to 4.7 mJ at 1 kHz, corresponding to the maximum amplification about 0.5 × 106 , by our regenerative amplifier. And an average power of 4.7 W is obtained at the repetition rate from 1 kHz to 10 kHz.     

Diode-Pumped Quasi-Three-Level Passively Q-Switched Nd：GGG Laser with a Codoped Nd,Cr：YAG Saturable Absorber

We demonstrate the first quasi-three-level passively Q-switched Nd：GGG laser at 937nm using a Nd, Cr：YAG crystal as the saturable absorber. The dependences of the average output power, the repetition rate and the pulse width on the incident pump power are obtained. A maximum average output power of 1.18 W with repetition rate of 35kHz and pulse width of 45ns is achieved at an incident pump power of 18.3 W. The corresponding optical-to-optical and slope efficiencies are 6% and 10%, respectively.     

Passively Q-Switched Nd：KLuW Laser with Semiconductor Saturable Absorber

We demonstrate a passively Q-switched Nd：KLu W laser with a semiconductor sat urable absorber mirror （SESAM） at wavelength 1070 nm. At a pump power of 1.3 W, the pulse width is measured to be about 17ns with repetition rate of lOkHz and with the average output power of 260roW. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of Nd：KLuW used for passively Q-switched laser with an SESAM.     

Investigation on mode matching including thermal effects in LD end-pumped passively mode-locked Nd：YVO_4 laser

We design a laser diode （LD） end-pumped passively mode-locked solid-state laser with a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror. Mode-matching efficiency in the active medium including the thermal effect is analyzed, and the optimum mode-matching coefficient is obtained by optimizing the pump mode. In the experiment, a total power of 4.2 W stable pulse sequences without multipulse at 1064 nm is obtained with a pulse repetition rate of 86 MHz and a pulse width of 13 ps, corresponding to a high optical to optical efficiency of 44%.     

Dark pulse emission in nonlinear polarization rotation-based multiwavelength mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser

We experimentally show dark pulse generation in all-normal dispersion multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser（EDFL） with a long cavity of figure-of-eight configuration. The EDFL generates a stable multiwavelength laser with 0.47 nm spacing at 24 m W threshold pump power, while the number of lines obtained increases with the pump power. A dark pulse emission is observed as the pump power is increased above 137 m W, with fundamental repetition rate of 29 k Hz and pulse width of 2.7 μs. It is observed that the dark pulse train can be shifted to second-, third-, and fourth-order harmonic dark pulses by carefully adjusting the polarization controller. For the fundamental dark pulse, the maximum pulse energy of 32.4 n J is obtained at pump power of 146.0 mW.     

A 526 mJ Subnanosecond Pulsed Hybrid-Pumped Nd:YAG Laser

A hybrid-pumped Nd:YAG pulse laser with a double-pass two-rod configuration is presented. The focal length of offset lens is particularly studied to compensate for the thermal lens effect and depolarization. For input pulse energy of 141μJ with pulse duration of 754 ps, the pulse laser system delivers 526 mJ pulse energy and 728 ps pulse width output at 10 Hz with pulse profile shape preservation. The energy stability of the laser pulse is less than 3%, and the beam quality factor M~2 is less than 2.26.     

Acousto-Optically Q-Switched Operation of Yb:CNGG Disordered Crystal Laser

We report the repetitively Q-switched laser operation of the Yb-doped calcium niobium gallium garnet disordered garnet crystal, achieved with an acousto-optic modulator in a compact plano-concave resonator that is endpumped by a 935-nm diode laser. An average output power of 1.96 W is produced at pulse repetition rate of50 k Hz at emission wavelengths around 1035 nm, with a slope efficiency of 16%. The highest pulse energy of 269 μJ is generated at pulse repetition rate of 1 k Hz, with pulse width 12.1 ns and peak power 20.53 kW.     

Passively Q-switched laser with single longitudinal mode based on the frequency selection of grating and F-P etalon in twisted-mode folded cavity

A passively Q-switched side-pumped laser with folded resonator is specially constructed for single- longitudinal-mode smooth pulse output. Nd：YAG is chosen as the laser active medium and Cr^4＋：YAG as the saturable absorber medium. Additionally, the method of frequency selection by grating with 1200 line/mm and Fabry-Perot （F-P） etalon is used in the twisted-mode cavity. The single-frequency smooth pulses are produced with 10-Hz repetition rate, 20-ns pulse width, and 1.064-μm wavelength. The proba- bility of single-frequency laser output measured is over 99% by using the methods of Fourier analysis and F-P etalon multiple-beam interferometry at the threshold voltage. The measured near-field and far-field angles of divergence are 1.442 and 1.315 mrad, respectively. The values of M^2 are 1.32 and 1.31 separately with the knife-edge method. Single pulse at 1.064 tim with the energy of 8.8 mJ is achieved in TEM00 mode.     

Diode-pumped Yb:SSO chirped pulse amplifier with 1 ps pulse duration

We demonstrate a diode-pumped picosecond Yb-doped silicate Yb3+:Sc2Si O5(Yb:SSO) chirped pulse amplifier. The seed source with a pulse width of 220 fs is a diode-pumped Yb:KGW femtosecond oscillator. A single chirped volume Bragg grating is employed both as a pulse stretcher and as a compressor to improve the compactness of the system. Stretched pulse is amplified using a diode-pumped Yb:SSO regenerative amplifier. The maximum amplified pulse energy obtained at a pump power of 13.5 W is 450 μJ. The amplified pulse is centered at 1033.3 nm before compression at a frequency of 1 k Hz. After compression, the pulse energy is 315 μJ with a pulse duration of approximately 1 ps.     

High-Efficient Nd：YLF Q-Switched Laser Operating at 523.5 nm

An intracavity frequency doubling electro-optically Q-switched Nd： YLF 523.5 nm laser is developed. An appropriate cylindrical lens is employed in the oscillator to optimize the mode size and to improve the stability of the cavity. With an incident pump pulse energy of 58 mJ at a 500 Hz repetition rate, a green pulse energy of 16.8 mJ at 523.5 nm is obtained, corresponding to an optical-optical conversion efficiency of 29%. The pulse width is less than 8 ns, and the beam quality factor is M^2≤ 2.5.     

A High-Energy Good-Beam-Quality Krypton-Lamp-Pumped Nd：YAG Solid-State Laser with One Pump Cavity

We investigate a high-energy good-beam-quality krypton-lamp-pumped pulsed Nd： YA G solid-state laser with one pump cavity. The symmetrical resonator laser is developed and is rated at 80 J with beam parameter product 12mm mrad. The total system electro-optics efficiency of the lamp-pumped YAG laser is as high as 3.3% and the stability of output energy is ±2% with pulse width tunable between 0.1 ms and 10ms. The experimental results are consistent with the theoretical analysis and simulation.     

Widely continuous-tunable 2.789-4.957 μm twin- MgO：PPLN cascaded optical parametric oscillator

An all-solid-state mid-infrared optical parametric oscillator with wide tunability by using two identical multi-grating periodically poled 5-mol.-% MgO-doped lithium niobate cascaded is reported. The pump laser is an acousto-optically Q-switched Nd：YAG laser with 150-ns pulse width at repetition rate of 10 kHz. Wide tunability from 2.789 to 4.957μm at the idler wavelength is achieved by varying the temperature from 40 to 200 ~C and translating the grating periods from 26 to 31 μm with a step of 0.5μm. When the incident pump average power is 8.15 W, the maximum idler output average power is 2.23 W at 3.344 μm and the optic-optic conversion efficiency is about 27.4%.     

Producing High Intense Attosecond Pulse Train by Interaction of Three-Color Pulse and Overdense Plasma

Amplifying the attosecond pulse by the chirp pulse amplification method is impossible. Furthermore, the intensity of attosecond pulse is low in the interaction of laser pulse and underdense plasma. This motivates us to propose using a multi-color pulse to produce the high intense attosecond pulse. In the present study; the relativistic interaction of a three-color linearly-polarized laser-pulse with highly overdense plasma is studied. We show that the combination of ω_1, ω_2 and ω_3 frequencies decreases the instance full width at half maximum reflected attosecond pulse train from the overdense plasma surface. Moreover,we show that the three-color pulse increases the intensity of generated harmonics, which is explained by the relativistic oscillating mirror model. The obtained results demonstrate that if the three-color laser pulse interacts with overdense plasma, it will enhance two orders of magnitude of intensity of ultra short attosecond pulses in comparison with monochromatic pulse.